


black irises in the sunshine

by uhjpg



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Small Town, F/M, Happy Ending, I live in miami so idk how seasons work but im tryin lmao, M/M, Magic, and are a senior at age 18 cuz im too lazy to go back and change anything., brief one sided iruka/genma, idk what happened w my logic but for the sake of the fic you start school at age 6, if something doesn't make sense it's cuz i don't understand Anything, minato and kushina are Alive cuz i am TIRED of angst jshchjjdkd give me something HAPPY, sorta?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2020-10-01 20:22:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 54,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20394073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uhjpg/pseuds/uhjpg
Summary: Iruka's used to big cities, the ones with the towering buildings and blaring traffic that makes you want to just throw yourself out into the street, and he just kinda assumed that he'd always live in one.That's before he ends up in the middle of nowhere in a small town filled with trees that look like they're on fire and seem to hum with something that isn't quite from this world. Combined with the eyes that flash into his view whenever he thinks he's alone, the gashes in the walls that apparently only he can see, and a school full of kids that seem insistent that everything is fine, Iruka might just have to admit that his adopted dad was right; small towns WERE filled with all sorts of adventures; you just need to look out for them.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> ok my brain really snapt and went "oh you start school tomorrow? write this au rn or die" so here i am instead of putting together my stuff for school tomorrow loll.
> 
> [this isn't edited so bear with me]

The steady drum of the rain hitting the window is marred by the way the wheels dip into potholes every few feet or so. Every time the wheels drop, Iruka's head bounces up from where he's leaning against the window and he smacks his head into it when the car levels out. This keeps happening but he doesn't move his head, choosing instead to stare at the thin raindrops slowly dripping down the glass before they fall out of view.

The woods behind the window are brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red that the thick fog and low sunlight can't quite blot out. The forest is thick, and he can barely make out the shadows deep within as the light is choked out by the sheer amount of foliage. The trees themselves are far less brown and more a shade of light grey, but that could just be his eyes playing tricks on him, struggling to see correctly in the dim light.

He shifts his weight onto his right leg, bringing his left one up onto the worn seat, the seatbelt tugging at his neck as he strains his neck to try to get a better glance at the woods. 

Growing up in Miami, he wasn't accustomed to thick forests (especially ones that weren't predominantly palm trees or just a never ending row of orange trees) or cool weather, so this was definitely a big change for him. One that he didn't actually choose for himself, he thought dryly to himself, shifting his eyes to where his adoptive father was carefully steering the wheel to try to avoid the worst of the potholes.

They hit yet another pothole, and Iruka's face smacks into the window, leaving a faint impression of his face on the fogged up glass. He frowns slightly, but can't be bothered to remove his face from the glass. He's too tired to hold up his head right now.

Minato glances back at him through the rearview mirror. "You doing okay back there?"

Iruka forces a smile onto his face. "Peachy."

His dad's eyebrows go up. "You sure your head can say the same thing?"

This time the smile that creeps onto his face is real, if not small. He bites his lip to keep in the small flutter of laughter that was threatening to bubble out. Next to him, Naruto shifts in his booster seat, thrashing thoughtlessly as he tries to turn against the seatbelt that's keeping him firmly in place. His head lolls to the right, mouth open with drool dripping out of it.

Iruka eyes the eight year old with mild interest, before turning back to the woods.

"How much longer?" He asks with feigned disinterest, knowing fully well that Minato would see through his act immediately. He put up an act that he was unhappy with being forced to move from Miami (and he was, in some ways) but both he and Minato knew that he was anxious to get a fresh start, they just choose not to mention it. Kushina, on the other hand, had called him out more than once when he had tried to complain. She was never one for ignoring the truth.

Thankfully, she was currently asleep, having driven for the past three hours, so there was no one to casually mention what he was so desperately ignoring (but probably still needed to hear).

Minato glances down at the GPS (that Naruto had fondly named 'Jips'), chewing at his lip. "It says about fifteen more minutes. Which is kinda crazy. I  _ knew  _ this would be a small town but I never actually considered  _ how  _ small." He says with a light laugh. "We haven't seen a single sign of human life for  _ ages. _ "

Iruka gives him his best "what-did-you-expect?' expression and Minato bites at his lip to keep from smiling. "You know why we needed to move here, 'Ruka. There's been a severe shortage of teachers out here, so Kushina and I have been sent here for a while to fill in."

"We were forced to come here and you  _ know  _ it." Iruka accuses, resisting the urge to cross his arms like a little kid.

The blond man sighs quietly. "Yes, we were. But living in Miami on two teachers salaries also wasn't cutting it. It's too expensive to live there. Working here will be a lot easier on us financially. And so what if we  _ had  _ to come here? This way we were automatically given a place to stay. Otherwise, we would've had to spend a good few months house hunting. We got to skip all that hassle and  _ trust  _ me, that's a good thing.

“Besides," he adds in a lighter tone. "This'll be exciting. There's all sorts of adventures to be had in small towns, all you need to do is look out for them."

"And maybe Naruto will stop eating ramen," Iruka mutters under his breath before looking out the window once more, noting that the rain had stopped.

"Hey, don't make up your mind before you even give the place a chance. What would your mom say if she heard you talking like that?" Minato tells him, amusement lacing his words.

Iruka smiles into the glass, imagining what Kushina would be saying if she were awake right now. "Well, since Naruto's asleep, she'd have to be quieter or risk waking him up and having to deal with his consent nagging, which even she probably can't handle right now. So she'd probably go with being quiet. But to make sure that her point still gets across, she'd probably use more,  _ creative,  _ language." He pauses, trying to come up with a realistic response from her. "Or maybe she'll yell anyways. Naruto can sleep through anything."

Minato laughs, bringing up one of his hands to cover his mouth. "Probably." He agrees before suddenly pointing out the big wooden sign that has  _ Welcome to Konoha!  _ Splashed across it in big red and black letters. "Look, Iruka! Human life!"

Iruka eyes the sign warily. "I forgot that existed."

"Don't be so dramatic. Save it for when Kushina wakes up."

Iruka grins before telling him that he should let Iruka get all the drama out of his system before Naruto wakes up and Minato has to deal with all three of them.

With a semi-annoyed "go back to your tree watching" Iruka slides back down against the cool glass with a smile and stares as the trees begin to thin and houses begin to appear.

Each house isn't too big, made of brick with a long gravel driveway, a big yard, and about ten feet of woods separating each home from the next.

Finally, as they reach the end of the street, Minato switches on his turn signal and he smoothly turns into a light gray gravel driveway, the car jostling slightly as the wheels turn over the small bits of rock.

Iruka eyes the house with interest, taking in as much of it as possible. It was a small two story house that was almost entirely of brick, completed with a chimney and an obvious basement. Iruka can barely believe his eyes. In Miami, there were absolutely  _ no  _ basements (being like, five feet above sea level would do that) and  _ no  _ chimneys (again, with an average temperature of about 87°, there was absolutely no reason for fire pits).

The car comes to a stop in front of the house and Iruka scrambles to undo his seatbelt as he throws open the door and stands up on his shaky, cramped up legs. He hasn't gotten out of the car for a good four hours and now his legs are paying the price.

Grimacing, he squats before straightening up once more, trying to stretch out his legs. His legs were of course not having it, protesting loudly as he pulls one behind his back in another futile attempt to smooth out the cramping.

"I'm 18." He huffs, putting down one leg and lifting up the other. "I shouldn't be having joint pain. Not at 18. Why does the universe hate me?"

A laugh draws his attention and Minato is staring at him from the porch, keys in hand. "You think it's bad now? Wait until you're in your 30s."

"Like  _ you  _ have anything to complain about. You're like in perfect shape." Iruka complains, taking note of Minato's complete lack of stretching.

Minato hums in response as he twists the key into the doorknob and swings the door open, revealing the inside of the house. "We should probably wake up your mom and brother now. They'd kill us if they knew that we saw the house before they did. Especially Naruto. I promised we'd explore the house together and try to find any secret passageways. He's sure that the house will have one."

Iruka takes one look at the house and feels his eyebrows climb higher. "Yeah, okay." 

“Oh, we’re here already?”

Iruka spins around and sees Kushina getting out of the car, rubbing at her eyes as she leans against the car door.

“Welcome to the land of the living,” Minato greets her, laughing as she mutters “take me back out” as a response, before detaching herself from the door and rounding the car to wake up Naruto.

“Naruto.” She tells him softly, but he refuses to wake up, turning his head stubbornly from where she was nudging his shoulder. She sighs, before whispering “Iruka’s gonna see the house before you do, which means he’ll be the one to find the secret rooms.”

The kid's eyes snap open instantly and he's soon squirming out of Kushina's hold on him and sprinting towards the house as fast as he can, blond hair flying around his bright blue eyes.

"Not without me!" He hollers, making a beeline for Iruka, who's still trying to get that one cramp out of his leg. 

Which of course means he was off balance and not ready for a bundle of hyperactive energy to fly straight into his arms and he lets out a shriek as he tumbles backward, grabbing Naruto tightly to make sure that at least the kid doesn't end up in the dirt.

He lands with his back against rough gravel and he lets out a quiet hiss as he stares up at Naruto, who's laughing at him from his perch on Iruka's chest.

"You fell like a sack of potatoes," Naruto informs him as solemnly as he could with a grin plastered across his face, reaching out to poke at Iruka's cheeks.

Iruka reaches out and swats his brother's small fingers out of his face. "And who's fault is that you little gremlin?"

"Mine," Naruto tells him gleefully, before leaning down and wrapping his thin arms around Iruka's neck and Iruka can feel his toothless smile against his skin.

Kushina is watching both of them with a fond expression and quickly pulls out her phone and snaps a picture of them before either of them can protest, cheerfully informing them that she's going to have it processed and then hung on their wall.

Great, Iruka thinks to himself dryly. That's the fiftieth bad picture she's taken of me on this trip alone. Hopefully, it won't be as bad as the one she had managed to take a few days ago when both Iruka and Naruto were dead to the world and were limping hanging off of their seatbelts like a pair of dead men. 

Picking Naruto up and gingerly placing him on the gravel next to him, Iruka stands up and is pleasantly surprised to notice that his leg cramp had disappeared.

"You're a medical genius." He tells the kid, who looks at him with an expression that's so riddled with confusion that you'd think Iruka had just introduced him to quantum physics.

Eventually Naruto recognizes the world genius and strike a pose, little fists balled up on his hips and yells "thank you" so loud that the whole neighborhood was now probably aware that they had new neighbors.

"You're welcome." Iruka nodded graciously and follows the little troll into the house.

-

The house is quite spacious, despite how small it looks from the outside, with a large living room and kitchen, as well as a master bedroom nestled into the walls on the right side of the house. Naruto quickly loses interest in the first floor and Iruka and Naruto are soon both sprinting up the wooden stairs and claiming their rooms.

Naruto's room faces west, and he smugly tells Iruka that he'll get to see the sunset  _ every night  _ from his  _ window.  _ Iruka counters and tells him that  _ he'll  _ get to see the sunrise every morning from  _ his  _ room.

Naruto just wrinkles his nose and tells him that he's weird for even considering waking up early enough to see the sunrise, and Iruka is inclined to agree. Then again, the chances of Naruto  _ actually  _ paying attention to the sunset of all things is almost laughable, but Iruka doesn't say that out loud.

Besides, he likes waking up to the natural light that the sun provides. It helps him wake up better. He flattens out his mouth, disappointed in himself. He sounds just like an old person.

The bathroom is in between their rooms and is equipped with a shower, two sinks, and a toilet that Iruka's gonna have to sanitize eight times over before he can use it with a calm conscious. 

The walls are painted a light cream color and Iruka already decides that the shower curtain would be a light yellow. To match the set of towels that they had, as well as the shower mat. It would all go together perfectly. Now all he needed to do was convince Naruto to throw out his obnoxious orange washcloth and swap it out for one that matches the color scheme of the rest of the bathroom…

He looks down at Naruto's bright orange hoodie and pauses. Maybe not.

Minato is calling them from downstairs, telling them to come help them unload the moving truck that had finally gotten here.

Naruto makes it to the stairs first and plops down on the first step before propelling himself forwards and Iruka is stuck watching his brother bob up and down as his butt falls from one step to the next, yelling loudly as he continues his downward slide. 

When Naruto gets to the bottom and announces that he won the race (that Iruka wasn't aware that they were having), Iruka quickly goes down the stairs and follows the rest of his family outside.

-

"Well, this is the last of them," Minato announces as he sets down yet another thin brown cardboard box on top of the table that had been brought in earlier, brushing off his hands. "Iruka could you go and double check if I locked the car door? I can't remember if I actually locked it or not."

"Yeah, sure." With that, Iruka creaks open the door and slips out, tightening his denim jacket around him as he makes his way towards the Hyundai, ponytail blowing in the breeze.

When he reaches the car he grabs the door handle and tugs a few times and sure enough, the car was locked. He shakes his head fondly. Minato always locked the car but he seemed to have some anxious tic that made him constantly want to recheck it. 

With the car securely locked, Iruka shoves his hands in his pockets, trying to curb the way the cool September wind nips at his hands and makes his way towards the house, only to stop when the sunset catches his eyes. 

What he sees steals his breath away. The sky was painted in warm hues of red, orange, pink, and yellow that seemed to swoop low and mix with the bright colors of the leaves from the very tops of the tall trees around him. The sun is still barely visible, patches of its brilliant shade of yellow poking out from the thick swirl of colors that seem to lead his eyes up higher, where the sky was darkening and the bright stars were beginning to sparkle just enough to be visible to the human eye.

Iruka lets out a soft sigh as he looks up at them, feeling oddly at ease. In the city, the light pollution made it impossible to ever see the stars, but out here it was like he was drowning in them, and the sun hadn't even fully set yet. He's sure they're absolutely stunning once the last of the sun's rays have slipped away out of reach. He keeps staring at the sky, feeling as if he's being pulled into them, into the sky, and into the universe above him. He exhales, watching his wisps of breath climb higher and higher into the sky until they seem to merge into the sky, joining the stars above him. 

A low, throaty howl pierces the quiet atmosphere and it jerks Iruka's attention back to the earth around him. He almost jumped out of his skin when he hears it, but clamps down onto his bottom lip with his teeth and starts towards the house, eyes trained on the lamp that was illuminating the front porch. He's about halfway there when all the lights around him flicker off and suddenly he can see eyes looking at him intently from the thick woods that surround the house. His breath catches in his throat and he suddenly forgets how to move, staying perfectly still, holding his breath. The eyes blink simultaneously, and the power flickers back on as soon as the whites of their eyes disappear from view.

Iruka, of course, does the thing most sensible people would do; let out a  _ very  _ undignified shriek, sprint up the driveway, up the stairs, swing open the door, lock it, and start jumping up in down in place to try to get all the nervous energy tingling through his body out of his system.

Naruto, who had been walking around with a fuzzy blanket draped over his head like a nun, was not one to be kept from joining into physical activities and begins copying Iruka, from the erratic jumping right down to Iruka's hysterical breathing. 

Still bouncing, Iruka reaches up and locks the second lock on the door, the one high up near the top of it before glancing down at the mass of brown and green fuzz that was bobbing up and down. The blanket and slipped down and covered Naruto entirely, but the kid was determined and kept hopping along right in pace with Iruka.

Which of course, cued Minato to walk out from the kitchen in his favorite pink apron, only for him to stop dead in his tracks and observe his kids jumping up and down in front of the doorway like a pair of kangaroos. Very panicky kangaroos, from the sound of it.

His gaze slides from his youngest, who had somehow transformed into a blanket, save for his orange clad feet that poked through whenever he landed on the ground to his oldest, who looked like he was about eight seconds from cardiac arrest and slowly backs out of the living room and gets Kushina.

After explaining the situation to her in a hushed, bewildered tone, she quickly runs out of the kitchen towards the living room. Unlike Minato, she doesn't freeze up but she  _ does  _ approach more cautiously than she normally would.

"Iruka? Naruto? Are you guys okay?" She asks calmly, her hands coming to rest at her hips. 

Iruka instantly freezes and Naruto, whose vision was currently impaired, keeps on jumping for a few more seconds before he realizes what had happened. He slows to a stop and crosses his arms but doesn't take the blanket off of his face.

"There." Iruka begins, pointing outside. "Are  _ animals  _ out there. There was a howl and the lights went off and there were  _ eyes.  _ And not in a fun way."

Minato can't even begin to understand what Iruka meant with "in a fun way" in  _ that  _ context but he laughs sheepishly, scratching at his hair at Iruka's mention of the short power outage while Kushina lets out a (relieved) laugh. 

"Iruka, we're in the middle of a forest, of course there are animals out there. It's different than Miami here. There's no busy nightlife or cities to keep the animals far away from us."

Iruka's expression falls a bit, and he suddenly feels like the world's biggest idiot for actually considering the fact that the place they were now living in was haunted. He blows a stray strand of hair out of his face. "Yeah okay, not my finest moment. What happened to the electricity?" 

Kushina turns around and eyes Minato with one raised eyebrow. He's still standing there pulling on his hair with the most sheepish expression Iruka had seen in years.

"That... _ may  _ have been my fault." He finally admits, lowering his arm to start fusing with the hem of the apron. "I shorted out a circuit that was apparently attached to the main one. But I fixed it." He pauses and gestures to the lights around them. "Obviously."

Iruka lets out a loud sigh and leaned heavily against the doorframe. "Oh thank  _ god."  _

Naruto, who finally decided that living inside of a blanket wasn't for him, looks up at him with squinted eyes. "You  _ want  _ them to get fixed? We were  _ this close"  _ he holds two of his fingers together for Iruka to see "To camping out in the living room with candles and flashlights and now cuz it's fixed, we can't." He complains, before informing Iruka he was a boring adult.

Iruka's eyebrows draw together as he looks down at Naruto, staring at him silently for a good minute before informing him that yes, while the power was technically fixed, there was literally nothing stopping them from turning  _ off  _ the lights and pretending that there was no electricity.

Naruto, stunned at this revelation, stares up at him with big eyes and an open mouth before he realizes what he's doing and scoffs, muttering under his breath that it "wasn't the same thing".

Iruka tugs the blanket off his head playfully and walks past him, glancing back at the door one last time to ensure that it was locked. Naruto is soon trailing after him, dragging the blanket behind him and pretending like following his older brother was the biggest pain in the world.

"Naruto. Don't drag that on the floor, it's not clean." Kushina calls out before wrapping an arm around her husband and dragging him back into the kitchen to finish dinner.

Iruka and Naruto follow them (after Naruto had carefully placed the blanket on the couch they had all lugged in earlier), taking out four plates and forks from one of the many boxes currently littering their home and walk over to sink where Iruka begins rinsing them off before handing them to Naruto to dry with one of the spare towels they had grabbed from another of the boxes. 

"Make sure you don't drop the plates." He cations as he hands the last one to Naruto, who waves him off with a grunt, completely absorbed with drying every bit of wetness off of the plate he was holding. 

Iruka shakes his head and grabs the rest of the plates as well as the forks and puts them on the table they had set up earlier that day. 

Kushina soon takes the pot of beans from the stove and places it on top of a cooling mitt she had put on the table earlier, and Minato does the same with the rice he had been making before turning to grab the bowl of salad that was sitting on the kitchen counter.

Kushina then moves to get one of the chairs that had been left out in the living room, pausing to press a quick kiss onto Iruka's cheek as she walks by. He grins at her and she winks back, before disappearing from view.

"MOM!" Naruto hollars from where he was still drying the last plate. "Where _ 's my  _ kiss?"

"I thought you said kisses were gross earlier today." Kushina's teasing voice floats into the kitchen from the opposite room and Naruto sputters as he tries to come up with an explanation for his past words.

Minato takes the plate from his hands before swinging Naruto over his shoulder, making the kid shriek with laughter. "What you say has consequences, buddy." He tells Naruto, the grin evident in his voice.

"Mom's supposed to be the strict one, not you," Naruto whines into his ear, starting to squirm. 

Minato doesn't pay him any mind as he casually walks to the table and places the last plate onto it, despite Naruto's best efforts to escape his grasp.

" _ Dad,"  _ Naruto complains, hitting at his back lightly with his fists. "I want  _ down." _

"What do we say?" Kushina asks as she reappears with the chair in tow, nibbling on her lip to keep from laughing.

Naruto pauses. "Thank you?"

If he had been anyone else, Iruka  _ may  _ have believed that they had confused please and thank you, but one look at his brother's twitching lips was all he needed to call bullshit.

"You're eight, not three." Iruka drawls, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his tone. "You  _ know  _ that's not it."

Naruto sends him an unimpressed glare from over his shoulder, but it's hard to be scared of an eight year old whose butt is covering half his face because of the angle he's in so Iruka just sticks his tongue out at him and Naruto rolls his eyes. 

"Fine.  _ Please  _ let me down." He asks sweetly and is soon dropped into one of the chairs surrounding the table. "Honestly." He shakes his head as he shifts the chair closer to the table. "You people have no appreciation for good humor."

Iruka shrugs lightly, knowing the best way to mess with Naruto is to act like you don't care. "Your point?" 

Naruto picks up the fork and points it at at Iruka. "I know what you're doing?"

"Oh?" Iruka asked mildly, taking the plate that Minato had piled with food and was handing to him. 

Naruto lets out an overdramatic huff and throws his head back against the chair, looking up at the ceiling with such a forlorn expression that Kushina has to reach over and whack Minato's arm to keep him from laughing and encouraging Naruto's theatrics.

"Eat." She levels all three of them with a steady gaze and suddenly all three of them were sitting properly in their chairs and eating their food without any complaints, trying not to squirm under her glare.

-

Naruto and Iruka eventually do end up camping out of their rooms, just not downstairs in the living room and without the potential fire hazard that comes with using candles. 

Their beds still haven't been put together, so Iruka and Naruto spent the better part of the evening creating an elaborate pillow fort for them to sleep in. Naruto had initially wanted to sleep downstairs with Minato and Kushina but Iruka could tell they were tired and needed sleep, something they wouldn't get if Naruto was with them talking their ears off until he nodded off, so Iruka had quickly suggested that they make their  _ own  _ fort upstairs so they could hang out without their parents listening in on their conversations.

Naruto hadn't needed much persuasion, thankfully, and soon the small room that served as a family room upstairs was covered in blankets and pillows. 

"Iruka! We're gonna stay up  _ all  _ night." Naruto had announced, scrunching up the cloth of his sleeping bag as he looked up at his older brother.

That had been about an hour ago and the kid was now laying sprawled across the floor on his stomach, mouth wide open.

Iruka shakes his head fondly and quietly rolls over and grabs his phone, checking the time. The white letters read  _ 11:07  _ brightly and Iruka winces and turns down his brightness before setting his phone back down and snuggling deeper into his own sleeping bag.

Running his fingers through his now lose hair, he stares at the ceiling, counting each of the creases in the wood. 

Just as his eyes begin to feel heavy and his head starts to drop a loud howl shook him awake and he snaps upright, gripping at the hem of the sleeping bag. He exhales loudly and shakes his head.

You're being stupid, he tells himself. Of course there are wild animals here, but that doesn't mean they're gonna get into the house. Hopefully.

Shaking his head, he lets out a small scoff and slides back into his sleeping bag. His mind wanders back to the eyes in the forest earlier, their irises black as the night around them, and his blood runs cold. He suddenly shifts closer to Naruto, wrapping his arm around the kid and bringing him close.

Eyes reflect light, not darkness. And those eyes didn't belong to an animal; they were human.


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe i have two tests tomorrow so ofc i wrote this [also BIG shout out to my school for canceling class today cuz of the hurricane that never actually hit. that was v iconic of them]
> 
> again, this isn't edited so if there are some horrendous mistakes in here it's cuz i don't have the attention span to go back and edit :)

The sunlight was warm against his skin, caressing his cheeks softly as he tilts his head and looks up at the sky above him. The sun is shining brightly and there isn't a cloud in sight, and if it hadn't been for the chill that nips at his skin every time the wind blows, he can almost convince himself that he's still in Miami, with its warm sunny rays and soft breeze. 

Then he opens his eyes and the illusion is shattered; he's not on a beach, he's in the middle of the woods in the  _ Massachusetts  _ of all places. A good couple of hours from Florida, he thinks wrly to himself as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind his ear after its escape from Iruka's ponytail.

The wind blows it back into his face and he furrowed his eyebrows at the strand of hair, watching it dance in front of his face from the continuous wind. It was absolutely irritating.

He watches it twist and turn for a few more seconds before sighing loudly and reaching up to take out the hair tie in his hair and let all his hair out of its grasp for a brief moment before he leans his head down and begins collecting all of his hair into a single knot at the top of his head before tying it sloppily back into place. It may not look good, but at least he didn't have pieces of his bangs constantly obscuring his vision.

Sniffing, he pushes his gold rimmed glasses back from where they had begun to slip off and starts down the path, his timms crunching the leaves he managed to step on, which he took immense pleasure in doing. That was definitely something he liked better about Konoha. The crunchy leaves. There was something very satisfying about hearing the distinct  _ crunch  _ the leaves made while he was walking. 

His glasses begin to slip down his nose again and a small growl slips through clenched teeth. He had run out of contacts yesterday and needed to get a refill at his next eye appointment, so, for the time being, he was stuck with his glasses. He knows that the only reason they slip off is because he has a tendency to walk with his head angled slightly downward, and he can easily remedy that, but he would rather die than consciously put effort into something, thank you very much.

He shoulders his bag and keeps on, walking determinedly towards the house. He had just finished walking around the neighborhood and was now hurrying back home in time for [a very late] lunch. Wandering aimlessly through the streets was a habit he had developed when he was younger. Walking helped him think, as well as resolve any anxieties that stuck with him. Of course, since he was in a new place he didn't walk as far as he normally would, but it was better than nothing.

He's just started to walk up the driveway when the wind suddenly picks up and Iruka can feel his hair starts to stand on its ends and he tenses up, breath stuttering in his chest as he feels the wind start to caress the nape of his neck and he feels the urge to turn around. 

He doesn't turn around.

Steeling his nerves and biting his lip, he grips the straps of his bag and marches towards the door at a steady pace, refusing to look back.

The wind gets stronger, pulling at his hair and making the strands fall out from the sloppy bun he had thrown it into earlier. His grip on the straps gets harder and he can see his skin start to pale from lack of blood flow. He keeps on walking. The wind pushes against him again, so hard that he stumbles and has to increase his speed to keep from falling onto his hands and knees.

His glasses slipped off his face and he bends over to pick them up, grabbing them without a second thought and hurrying towards the house without bothering to put them back on.

The wind pushes back against him again and he finally groans in frustration and whirls around, throwing his hands up in exasperation. 

"Are you happy?" He snaps, feeling quite stupid for talking to the wind.

The wind hums quietly, gently stroking at his now loose hair. 

He frowns and shakes his head, trying to get rid of the feeling. It felt too much like an actual person running their fingers through his hair for his comfort. He pulls it back up in a tight ponytail and peers at the woods across from him, trying to see if there was actually anything there worth seeing. Everything is blurry and for a split second, he's actually met with the terrifying possibility that there  _ was  _ something out there, before he realizes he never put his glasses back on.

Shaking his head, he slips the round frames onto his face and looks back into the woods for a second time, absently reaching up to scratch at his scar.

His hand freezes halfway to his face when he suddenly makes eye contact with something deep in the forest. It's too far back for Iruka to see it clearly, it's protected by dark shadows and thick shrubbery, but one thing Iruka can see clearly is its shiny black eyes, glinting from what literally of the sunshine could make it through the tall branches. The eyes are steady, they don't blink and they don't waver. They're frozen on Iruka and Iruka's eyes are frozen right back onto the creature.

The wind picks up again and the leaves begin to rustle as the breeze rips them from their perch on the branches above and there's a torrent of reds, oranges, and yellows that cascade from high above. They swirl down towards the ground in a spiral pattern, completely obscuring the creature from view. When the wind slows down again and the leaves settled on their new home on the ground, the eyes were gone.

Iruka frowns and blinks, wondering if he had actually seen anything in the first place. He  _ hopes  _ he hadn't and that his glasses' prescription was wrong, but he had a strong feeling that that was unfortunately not the case.

He takes an uncertain step backward before whirling around and running towards his house, his panting overpowering the sound of the wind blowing around. 

His fingertips are just brushing over the cool metal of the doorknob when he hears a light laugh and he freezes in his tracks, hand hovering over the doorknob.

“Were you getting chased by something or did you just really have to use the bathroom?” A not-so-quiet voice teased lightly and Iruka spins around and stumbles back when he sees a girl sitting on the railing behind him, legs swinging back and forth as she grins down at him, eyes twinkling as she takes in his expression.

Iruka closes his mouth and straightens himself up, a nervous laugh escaping his throat as he reaches up to tug at a loose strand of hair. He looks at the girl, taking in her appearance. She was probably around his age, with short purple hair that was thrown up in a high ponytail while her short bangs fell sloppily around her face and into her eyes. She had a small silver nose ring that kept reflecting the light in Iruka’s eyes and he fights the urge to squint.

She hops off the railing and walks up to Iruka, holding out her hand. “‘M Anko. I live two houses down and I saw you walking by and I didn’t recognize you. So I followed you.”

Iruka blinked dumbly at her confession, wondering if she was aware of how weird telling a stranger that you followed them sounds.

Anko still has her hand out, beaming at him as she waits for him to return her handshake, which he hadn’t done, Iruka realizes. Muttering a barely audible apology, he grabs her hand and lets go just about as fast.

“I’m Iruka.” he offers with a tight smile, hoping that she didn’t mistake his current discomfort as an initial dislike towards her. She was a little weird, yeah, but she didn’t seem bad overall.

Thankfully she either doesn’t notice his currently fragile emotional state or she’s ignoring it, and immediately begins hammering him with questions.

“So you’re new, right? I mean obviously, you weren’t here two days ago.” She rambles, not giving him an opportunity to answer. “Where did you move from? Wait let me guess, Florida.”

She lets him gape at her for a few seconds before informing him that she was  _ not  _ a psychic, she had looked at the car’s license plate while walking up the driveway.

Iruka scowls at her, before telling her that if she wanted to get to know people she could just ask them instead of stalking them and reading their license plates and whatever other personal information she had managed to get her hands on in the ten minutes she had seen him.

She lets out a sharp bark of laughter and tells him that she likes him.

“Thanks, I think,” Iruka mutters, pushing his glasses back up with his wrist as Anko adjusts her black NIRVANA t shirt, tugging it down from it had begun to ride up, and ties the front into a small knot before looking back at Iruka with another smile. Iruka was beginning to think that her slightly unnerving smile was almost permanently etched onto her face, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one hand, she could obviously make whatever expression she wanted to, but he can’t help but feel like she’s psychoanalyzing him right in front of him.

She blinks lazily before suddenly pulling out her phone and then shoving it in Iruka’s face.

“Okay, so what’s your opinion, this” she shows him a picture of a small black tattoo with three paw prints “or this one?” she swipes at the screen and another tattoo shows up, this time a small snake that was coiled lazily on the person’s forearm.

Iruka’s eyebrows knit together as he contemplates both of the options, swiping between the two of them a few times before settling on the one with the snake. “I like this one better.” He nods decisively, and Anko gives him an expression that makes him feel like he just passed a test he didn’t know he was taking.

“Me too.” She affirms, pocketing her phone.

There’s a low creek and Iruka barely has time to jump out of the way to avoid getting hit in the head with the heavy door that is suddenly swinging towards him. The door smacks against the wall, bouncing slightly a few times from the force of the push that had caused it to open in the first place.

Naruto’s mop of blond hair pokes out from the doorway where he looks up at Anko with squinted eyes, mouth turned down in a scowl. His arms are crossed over his chest and is standing on his tiptoes, trying to make himself appear taller.

After a good minute of disbelieving stares (and an unimpressed eyebrow raise from Anko), Naruto finally cracks. “Who  _ are _ you?” He demands, walking out from the doorway to stand in front of her, craning his neck to look up at her.

“Anko.” She says offhandedly, looking down at him with her eyebrows lifted ever so slightly.

Naruto scrutinizes her for a few more seconds before asking “You like ramen?”

Anko blinks twice, obviously not expecting that the question that would potentially make or break her relationship with this kid would be based on  _ ramen,  _ but the corners of her mouth are soon quirking up to form a smile and she nods her head. “Love that stuff.”

Naruto’s expression brightens and he nods to himself before turning over his shoulder and hollering “MOM! ‘RUKA MADE A NEW FRIEND. SHE’S WEIRD BUT SHE LIKES RAMEN SO SHE’S ALLOWED TO STAY.” 

Iruka’s palm hits his forehead before he even knows what he’s doing and he lets out a quiet groan, peering down to glare at the hyperactive ball of energy that was now bouncing around Anko, pestering her with just about every and any question he could think of. 

Anko, to her credit, doesn’t look the least bit fazed with having a human shaped cluster of pure energy bombarding her from all sides as she laughs and answers any question Naruto throws at her. 

Kushina, who had heard Naruto’s yelling and had come out to investigate, walks over and peaks out of the house, watching the three kids interact with a small smile on her face. Naruto soon notices her and grins brightly up at her and gestures to the girl standing on their porch.

“Mom! This is Anko. She likes snakes, purple, and ramen. But most importantly ramen.” He rattles off her likes and grabs at his mom, pulling her towards Anko. “Anko this is my mom and she makes the best ramen  _ ever. _ ”

Kushina laughs and holds out her hand. “I’m Kushina Uzumaki.” 

Anko takes her hand before tilting her head to the side. “Uzumaki? Are you by any chance the new AP Stats teacher at the high school?”

“That would be me.” Kushina nods, bringing her hand down and slipping it in her pocket.

Anko grins. “Cool! You have me in your fourth period class. You’ll love us. We might all be failing but at least we’re funny.”

Kushina’s brows draw together as she smiles lightly “Well when I start working with your class, you’ll be both funny  _ and  _ passing.”

Anko shrugs. “Good luck with that. I’m not sure how some of the people even  _ got  _ into the class if I’m being honest. I don’t think that Genma even knows how to add…” She trails off, muttering to herself.

Iruka watches as Kushina’s eyes widen comically for a split second before her face is carefully schooled once more and bites at his lip to keep from laughing.

“Well, I hope Genma’s taking advantage of the after school tutoring.” Kushina finally responds, looking just a bit terrified at the prospect of teaching an Advanced Placement math course to kids who potentially can’t add.

The snort Anko lets out seems to prove Kushina’s worst fears are true and her face goes comically blank for a few seconds before she gives a polite smile. “Well I hope that Genma and whoever else may need it, will start taking advantage of the tutoring sooner rather than later.”

“Oh he’s taking advantage of  _ something,  _ that’s for sure,” Anko mutters in Iruka’s ear and Iruka lets out a sharp bark of laughter. Naruto looks up at them, confused and Kushina just sighs and grabs her younger son’s hand.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that. Naruto, we still have to put your supplies together for school tomorrow and Iruka you still need to go down to that bookstore and buy that book for your English class.”

Iruka is just starting to grumble when Anko asks him what book he needs to buy.

“Catcher in the Rye.” He tells her mournfully and she nods thoughtfully.

“I have to get that book for school too, but I wasn’t actually gonna buy it cuz I can’t be bothered to go out of my way to buy it but if you’re gonna go get yours I’ll come with you and get mine too.”

Iruka tries not to look too hopeful. “Really? Oh my god  _ please.”  _ He might not  _ look  _ hopeful but he sure  _ sounds  _ hopeful, he thinks wryly to himself.

“Yeah! Besides, it’ll be nice to get an A for once.” Anko shrugs lightly and with one last wave to Kushina who had begun to close the door, they both start to walk down the driveway.

Iruka’s face must have shown some of his confusion because she starts to explain. “Okay so we have to have the books in by a certain time for a grade, except I never actually buy the books because I don’t want to spend money on that so I always get an F. But since you’re going I might as well go and get mine so I can get an A. I’m not sure how much help one A is gonna be in a bucketload of F’s but it’s better than nothing!” She finishes cheerfully, swinging her arms over her head before looking left and right to check for cars. When there’s none in sight, they cross the road and walk into the woods.

Iruka frowns, lips pressed hard together. “Why are we going through the woods?” He asks, hoping that he doesn’t sound too paranoid. He couldn’t help not wanting to walk through the same patch of woods that he had seen some type of large animal in not even an hour earlier.

Anko rolls her eyes dramatically but doesn’t stop. Instead, she grabs onto his jacket sleeve and drags him forward, muttering something that sounded a lot like ‘city kids’.

“It’s a short cut.” She finally tells him when they were about five minutes deep into the woods. “The normal walking time to the actual town is thirty minutes. Through here it’s more like fifteen.”

Iruka clamps his mouth shut and stops complaining, choosing instead to just follow Anko’s lead and trust that she knows where she’s going and that they won’t get stranded in the middle of nowhere. 

He hears a throaty croak and he freezes in his tracks, only to stumble forwards at Anko’s insistent tugging. He looks around wildly, and he sees a thick cluster of crows eyeing him from the tree branches above him. Their beady black eyes are trained on him and they let out another throaty cry, and he hears a response echoed from far away. The crows are still looking at him and he darts his eyes away from theirs, looking away from them.

They let out another cry, but this time they sound enraged. When he does look up, he doesn’t look at them. He looks at Anko. Her head is down and her pace isn’t slowing down. She keeps her tight grip on him and he doesn’t protest, ducking his head down as well.

Another shrill cry vibrates through the air, and he can feel the temperature lower. Despite this, his palms begin to sweat and he trains his eyes on the ground beneath him, focusing on counting the leaves that crunched beneath his weight. The crows’ cries seem closer now, and when something soft brushes against his cheek his body jerks back, trying to distance itself from the crow’s wings. Anko tugs at him harshly, not letting him back up. Iruka swallows hard and quickens his own pace to match hers. 

He can still feel the crows’ eyes on him.

The town is just in view and Anko finally looks back at him with a smile plastered onto her face. “Race ya!” She announces before taking off, leaving Iruka to chase after her, wondering if the silent fear behind her smile had just been his own imagination. 

The colors from the woods blur together as he races after her, though they might just be blurry because he took off his glasses to ensure that they don’t fall off. He didn’t want to spend any more time in these woods, and blindly groping around for his glasses was absolutely not on his to do list at the moment.

When he skids to a stop next to Anko, she’s all smiles once more, not a trace of worry on her face.

Iruka frowns. He must have been seeing things. He slips his glasses back on and follows Anko as she begins walking towards a small bookstore that was shoved between a cafe and a small shop with Halloween decorations covering its windows and doors.

They make their way up the street to the store, weaving around the countless potholes that litter the street.

“Why aren’t these filled up?” Iruka asked her offhandedly.

“They were.” Was Anko’s reply. When she doesn’t elaborate, Iruka stops trying to get answers from her. He wasn’t sure  _ why  _ but the potholes seemed to be a touchy subject. He eyes them from where he was standing and one look at the gross rainwater that had collected there was enough to convince him to never go near one ever again.

They walk up the hill where the store was, with no little amount of huffing and puffing from Iruka, and he eventually manages to drag himself to the top. When Anko raises her eyebrows at him, he’s quick to inform her that not even a week ago he’d been living about _ five  _ feet above sea level and that the highest hill he’d ever climbed was a trash dump that he and a friend had been dared to scale.

Her eyebrows seem to climb even higher, but she just laughs at him and tells him he’s going to have to work on his stamina if he wants to survive living here. He laughs with her, but something at the back of his mind wonders if she meant something else by that statement. He shakes his head slightly and grabs the door, pulling it open and letting Anko step inside before he closes it behind him. 

The bell on the door jingles when he closes it behind him and a girl calls out to greet them from the back of the shop. “Just call me when you’re ready for me!” 

Iruka can see the top of her head as she reaches up to slot a book into a shelf and starts towards her before hesitating. He’d look for the book himself before bothering her, he decides and starts to wander off in the opposite direction.

Anko had other plans.

“Hey, Kurenai!” She chirps as she hops over one bookshelf and runs around another, paying little attention to the books that fell out from the impact.

The girl, Kurenai, looks absolutely unimpressed and fixes Anko with a sharp glare. “I just organized that, genius.”

“You know I’ll put them back.” Anko waves her hand dismissively before darting forwards and pulling the other girl into a tight hug, lifting her slightly off the ground. Kurenai laughs loudly but smacks Anko’s shoulder, demanding to be put down. Anko spins her in a circle twice before finally letting her down, beaming brightly at her.

Kurenai shakes her head before grabbing one of the bookshelves to steady herself, still a bit dizzy from all the spinning.

“What do you want, Anko? I still have another 30 minutes before my shift ends and I  _ know  _ you’re not here to buy a book-”

“I’m here to buy a book!” Anko announces, and Kurenai looks like she just witnessed Hell freezing over firsthand.

“You  _ what?” _

“I’m buying a book, hotstuff!”

Kurenai looks a bit slack jawed before finally pulling herself together. “Wow.” She muses to herself. “I didn’t know you could read.” She blocks Anko’s wack without even looking at her, so Iruka has the feeling that that happened a lot. 

“You’re actually buying Catcher in the Rye? I thought you said you weren’t buying it last class.” Kurenai asks, casually running her fingers down the spines of the books before she finally finds the small orange book and plucks it out and hands it to Anko, who takes it and then grabs another one, which she throws at Iruka.

Iruka grabs it out of the air easily, he’s played enough baseball to be able to catch a flying object, thank you very much, and walks over to where the two girls are standing. 

Anko nods at him, before grabbing him and pulling him closer to the two of them. “This nerd here is Iruka. He’s a nerd and his little brother is cooler than him.”

“Do you even know his name?” Iruka deadpans and Anko’s conveniently blank face answers that question for both Iruka and Kurenai. 

“His name’s Naruto and he thinks you’re weird,” Iruka tells her solemnly, while Kurenai laughs. 

Anko wrinkles her nose. “I  _ know  _ he thinks I’m weird, thank you very much. I’m pretty sure the whole fucking neighborhood knows that Naruto thinks I’m weird.” She pauses for a moment before admitting “He has a  _ very  _ nice set of lungs.”

Iruka grins. “He wasn’t even half as loud as he can get. You should hear him when he’s in the same room as a bunch of kids. I swear he gets louder when there are others around. I’m almost positive he thinks it’s a competition.”

“Well, demons  _ do  _ get stronger in packs.” Anko offers helpfully and both Kurenai and Iruka fix her with an incredulous stare. 

“What?” She complains. “You telling me that you actually  _ like  _ spending extended amounts of time with kids?”

Kurenai lets out a long sigh and beckons them to follow her to the cash register where they pay for their books and leave with a loud “I’LL SEE YOU IN CLASS, KURENAI” from Anko and a quieter “It was nice to meet you” from Iruka after Anko picks up the books she had knocked over earlier. 

The sun’s getting low and as they step out from the store the last of its golden rays are slathered across the buildings around them. Iruka checks his phone and does a double take when he sees what time it was.  _ 6:17.  _

He frowns, wondering where the time had gone. It had been about 2:30 when he got back from his walk and met Anko, so there was no way it could be so late so fast. He looks over to Anko, who had a tight expression on her face as she looks west at the waning sun. When she notices him looking at her, she just sends him a lazy smile and tells him they should hurry up and get back before the sun sets. 

“Don’t wanna be caught in the dark with the wolves.” She tells him in a hushed whisper, waggling her eyebrows at him suggestively. 

He snorts and shoves her out of his face and she laughs loudly, hitting his shoulder as she tries to control her laughter. His own mouth starts to curve into a smile, and soon the two of them are laughing, though Iruka isn’t sure at what. 

Still laughing, they make their way around the potholes on the road, arms lazily thrown over each other's shoulders as they make their way to the edge of the woods. The closer they get to the edge of the forest, the more hysterical their laughs get until they both quiet down and stare soundlessly at the thick mass of trees. 

The woods are dark, way darker than they had been earlier that day, and the brown-grey tint of the tree trunks look almost black. They both instinctively straighten themselves and warily make their way into the dark swirl of leaves and branches.

They stick as close to the worn path as they can, when they get too close to the thick bushes they start to rustle and Iruka isn’t in a hurry to find out what’s living in them. They keep going forwards, keeping their eyes to the ground. Iruka doesn’t look up when he hears the crows again. He learned his lesson. He focuses on his shoes. 

When he hears the familiar howl in the distance he tenses slightly and this time he doesn’t need to wait for Anko to pull him to increase his pace. 

Anko is still quiet, not making a single noise, which is very unlike her. She always has something to say, and watching her walk with her head intentionally lowered with a tight lipped expression does nothing to ease Iruka’s nerves. When she notices him looking at him, she sends him a steady smile that would have helped him if he didn’t know it was a fake. 

He knows there’s something watching them from behind, but he resists the urge to look back and see. Anko knows it too and she takes bigger steps, trying to cover more ground without breaking out into an all out run. Iruka has a nagging suspicion that running would only make it worse. He thinks back to his first night here when he first saw the eyes and how he had full out sprinted towards the house. He wrinkles his nose, thinking about just how stupid of a move that was. Predators usually chase their prey when it runs so by running he had been broadcasting ‘hey come chase after me!’ to every single goddamn animal out there. In fact, he wasn’t quite sure why it hadn’t chased him. 

Maybe because it  _ wasn’t  _ an animal, the side of his brain that was always actively working to sabotage him suggests helpfully. He shoves that thought aside and focuses on increasing his speed even more. He’d like to be alive to complain about getting up for school tomorrow.

The eyes are glued to his back and a shudder runs down his spine and his grip on Anko’s hand tightens, and she squeezes back in return. 

When his house comes into view, he has to actively restrain the sigh of relief that bubbles past his throat. They quickly pass the border that separates the woods from the road and the pressure that had been building quickly eases. 

Anko lets go of his hand and reaches up and tightens her ponytail, while Iruka looks at his surroundings, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. In the forest it was so dark that he had thought it was past sunset, but now that he was out of the woods he sees that the sky was just beginning to be splashed with bright colors as the last of the sun dipped from view.

“Guess those trees really block out the sun.” He comments, nodding towards the sunset.

“What?” Anko looks like she had just been interrupted midthought and she blinks once before registering his question. “Oh. Yeah. The leaves are really thick and stuff.” She tells him brusquely, rolling out her shoulders and then pulling her dark denim jacket closer around herself.

Iruka does the same, before waving his book slightly with his left hand. “Well, I should head back. Thanks for coming with me to get this.” he pauses, before continuing with a question. “Do you want me to walk home with you?”

Anko looks at him with a pleasantly surprised expression before shaking her head with a smile, telling him that she’ll be just fine on her own. “I’m only two houses down,” she points to the house that was bordered by thick pine trees. “Don’t worry man. Besides, don’t wanna keep you up too late before your first day of school.” She tells him teasingly, before giving him a salute and walking down the street.

Iruka grins after her. “Make sure you don’t stay up too late either! It might not be your first day of school but you sure as hell look like you need your sleep.” He hollers.

He hears her laugh and watches as she sticks her middle finger up at him without bothering to turn around. 

Laughing softly, he walks up his own driveway, the eyes on the back of his head almost forgotten. He pauses once his fingers wrap around the doorknob and peers out into the darkness. It takes some searching, but soon he’s making eye contact with the same black eyes as earlier today. He jerks open the door and scurries inside, locking it behind him and leaning against it, exhaling slowly.

-

Grumbling about how he wished the random not-animal from the woods had killed him then and there so he wouldn’t have to be here, Iruka hops out of Kushina’s car and with a quick goodbye drags his feet towards the students’ entrance to the school.

Pulling his bomber jacket over his white turtleneck and cursing the cold weather, he slings his backpack over his shoulder and opens the heavy doors with little difficulty, before walking aimlessly down the halls, keeping an eye out for messy purple hair. 

When he doesn’t immediately spot her he impatiently pulls out his phone and finds her contact.

_ You, 6:30 A.M.: whERE ARE YOU? _

He doesn’t have to wait long for her reply.

_ Anko, 6:31 A.M.: its 630???school starts at 7:20 lol why are u there so early _

_ You, 6:31 A.M.: cuz my mom woRKS heRe  _

_ Anko, 6:32 A.M.: sucks for you _

_ Anko, 6:32 A.M.: anyways I don’t have to get up until 640 so gn loser _

Scrunching up his face, he pockets his phone and takes in the students that were already there curiously. There were quite a few, despite what Anko had said about not coming to school until later. Then again, she didn’t seem like the type to be on time anyways. 

Looking around the room, his eyes land on two boys who are blatantly staring at him from across the hall. Instead of looking away when he makes eye contact with them. They both grin at him and the one with the wilder hair starts waving him over with so much force that he smacks the boy next to him, who retaliates by pinching him in the side. The one with the crazy hair freezes midwave and lets out a loud screech that has everyone in the building staring at him. When everyone sees that it was him who yelled, they continue on without even batting an eye. Iruka has the feeling that he’s going to get a lot more than he bargained for from these two.

He’s about to introduce himself when the one with the crazy hair practically pounces on him. “Hey, Iruka! I’m Kotetsu! Don’t worry I’m not like stalking you or anything, Anko already did that for us so she just told us and-” The other boy elbows him and mutters something in Kotetsu’s ear and Kotetsu laughs sheepishly.

The other boy holds out his hand. “I’m Izumo. Sorry about Ko. I’d say it gets better the longer you know him but unfortunately, it doesn’t.” He looks mournfully at Kotetsu who looks absolutely stricken at the other’s words.

_ “Izumo.”  _ He gasps, wide eyed. “How could you?”

“I’ve been stuck with you since kindergarten, I’m allowed to speak my mind.”

“You  _ chose  _ to be stuck with me.” Kotetsu corrects firmly and Izumo laughs and nods at him.

Iruka stares at Izumo’s hand, which is still out, then back at Izumo who’s busy with looking at Kotetsu like he’s simultaneously the best and worst thing on the planet. He cringes internally, mentally panicking over what to do with Izumo’s offered handshake.

Kotetsu, thankfully, makes that decision for him by thrusting himself towards Izumo, who withdraws his outstretched hand to make sure the other boy doesn’t fall and break his nose. After ensuring that he  _ wouldn’t  _ he looks a lot like he regretted saving him.

Iruka nods to himself before breaking into their little moment. “So yeah, I’m Iruka. Yeah.” He nods awkwardly, unsure of what else to say to them, but they instantly spring apart and crowd him, demanding that he show them his schedule. 

When he hands it to them, they look at it closely and then look at each other while nodding.

After having what looked like a telepathic conversation between the two of them they look up at Iruka with mirroring grins and tell him that he has every class with them. Iruka feels like he should be at least a little terrified at the idea of spending his entire day every day with these two, but he can’t help but feel relieved. At least he’ll know  _ someone  _ and they weren’t bad, just a little eccentric. He can deal with eccentric, he lives with Naruto Uzumaki so spending time with these two should be cake. Hopefully.

Kotetsu grabs both of Izumo’s hands, who pulls away and accidentally pushes Iruka back into the hallway just as something barrels towards him.

He hears a high pitched scream and “LOOK OUT” and before he knows it he’s knocked off his feet and he’s suddenly on the ground with a heavy weight draped across him and his glasses nowhere to be found. He inhales deeply and counts backward from ten. He was  _ not  _ going to kill someone on his first day of school. He  _ wasn’t.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like..comment or something if you want to👀👀


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing this: delicious, finally some fucking pLOT
> 
> like always this isn't edited and i am v sick so like. bear w me here.
> 
> also this is v long cuz i didn't really know where to split it w/o ruining the Flow so yeah lol

Iruka squeezes his eyes shut, inhaling deeply and trying to reign in his flaring temper. There was absolutely no reason to pop off at some random person because of an accident and make the person (and their friends) hate him for all of eternity. 

He hears a quiet ' _ fuck'  _ and the weight on him scrambles off of him. His chest cries out in relief as his airways are freed and he inhales deeply, just as someone's hands touch his face, slapping his cheeks softly.

He blearily opened his eyes and can barely make out a face and some brown hair.

"You okay buddy?" The person asks.

They have a nice voice, Iruka thinks absently as he reaches out blindly, feeling around for his glasses. 

"Oh shit. Sorry." The blob of face and hair dips down for a second and when they reappear, they're slipping Iruka's glasses over his nose and onto his face.

Iruka's just about to snap at the person, ready to inform them that he doesn't need help to put on his fucking  _ glasses  _ when suddenly his world comes back into view and the blob clears up and morphs into the most beautiful man Iruka has ever seen in his life. His jaw doesn't go slack, he's not  _ that  _ much of a useless gay, but he  _ does  _ feel his cheeks start to burn up a bit as the person continues to stare at him with concern written all over his face. 

Iruka mentally decides that this guy can stare at him as long as he likes, whenever he likes. 

The guy has a very nice face, with dark brown eyes and long hair that goes a little past his chin. Added with what looks suspiciously like a  _ sebon  _ that was hanging loosely around his lips, he looked like some fever dream Iruka had come up with to help deal with the mortification of getting knocked flat onto his ass without even being in school for an hour for everyone, their mom, and god to see. Hell, he looks so nice that Iruka's willing to ignore the bright yellow monstrosity of a bandana with Hawaiian flowers that he has tied around his neck.

He realizes he's staring and stumbles over himself to find something to say.

"Sorry." He blurts out and the other guy laughs.

"Why are you saying sorry? It's not like you were the one who knocked over the poor unsuspecting new guy. Unless you got in my way on purpose." He finishes with a wink and Iruka rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, because I  _ wanted  _ to fall on my ass for everyone and god to see.” Iruka snorts as he pushes himself with his hands. “That was my master plan to get your attention. Did it work?” He cocks his head to the side and grins up at the guy, hoping that the other guy didn’t notice his blush.

The other guy shakes his head, hair swirling around his chin and jaw, and he lets out a slight laugh. “I mean…” He trails off and pushes himself off the floor, dusting off the flecks of dust from his Adidas joggers before holding his hand out to help Iruka up. “Genma.” He offers, a loose smile hanging off his mouth.

“Iruka.” He grasps the outstretched hand and Genma hauls him to his feet effortlessly. 

“Can I see your schedule?” Genma’s already reaching for the wrinkled piece of paper in Iruka’s hand so Iruka doesn’t bother to answer; just hands it over. 

Genma snatches the schedule from his hands and quickly unravels it, making sure to not rip the thinned out edges, before scanning the paper, making noncommittal noises as he moves his eyes back and forth across the document. Iruka isn’t one to quickly crush on people, but he’s hoping that Genma will be in at least one of his classes a bit harder than was probably normal. He writes it off as not wanting to have classes without any friends, but his common sense is calling his bullshit faster than he has time to come up with a workable excuse. 

Genma’s eyes flicker off the page to Iruka and gives him an amused glance. “Cold?”

Iruka looks down turtleneck, jacket, and timms and then to Genma’s thin black t shirt and joggers and crosses his arms as he huffs, blowing that damn strand of hair that never stays in its place out of his face. “ _ Yes.  _ It’s  _ freezing.” _

Genma hums as he looks back at the paper. “It’s only like 60 degrees out.”

“Where I lived this was considered freezing.” Gumbles Iruka as he absently plays with the sleeve of his jacket with one hand, holding out the other one waiting for Genma to give him his schedule back.

Kotetsu peaks over Genma’s shoulder, before giving the guy an unimpressed look. “Did you forget your glasses at home again?”

Genma just brings the paper closer to his face until his nose is almost brushing against it. “Nah. I’m just too lazy to take them out of my bag. Izumo! What does this say? I’d ask Kotetsu but he doesn’t know how to read.”

Ignoring Kotetsu’s shrill protest, Izumo reads out Iruka’s schedule to him and Genma grins. “We have our last three periods together.”

_ Delicious. Finally some good fucking news.  _ Iruka thinks to himself internally. Outwardly he just grins and says "Cool, I'll know someone."

Genma nods and Kotetsu interjects with a "HEY. Izumo and I are there too, what are we, chopped liver?"

"Yeah." A familiar sounding voice floats down the hallway and Iruka turns and sees Anko sauntering up the hallway, grinning like the Cheshire cat. She salutes them with three fingers in greeting. "Hey, 'Ruka. Kotetsu. Izumo. Genma, looking radiant as ever." She dips her chin at him.

Genma grins brightly and flips his hair mockingly. "Who, me? Anko, what would Ro say if I told him?" He splays his fingers over his chest.

Anko snorts but doesn't answer, leaving Iruka to wonder just who "Ro" was. Before he has a chance to ask the bell rings loudly and Iruka slaps his hands over his ears and looks irritably towards the bell right overhead. 

"You really got to school at the last possible moment." He manages to tell Anko before Kotetsu is grabbing his arm and Izumo is grabbing Kotetsu's and ranting about how Kotetsu was the reason he already had a tardy warning and if he got another one he'd get detention and he  _ refused  _ to get detention. 

Anko just laughs as she and Genma turn and walk in the opposite direction to get to their own first period.

-

Iruka shifts impatiently in his seat next to the window, eyeing the clock just over Kushina's head. Logically he  _ knew  _ she'd be his AP Statistics teacher, she was the only one at the school, but there was still something weird about walking into school and having your mother teach you.

Kushina hadn't been weird about it, just throwing him a cheerful "Good morning Iruka!" As he walked in. Now seated in class, he watches as Kushina is explaining the concept of class limits and class boundaries. He eyes the clock. Twenty minutes until it was time for lunch. He was  _ starving.  _ His stomach growls quietly in agreement with his thoughts and he purses his lips, hoping no one heard him. 

Thankfully, most students were staring at the board with varying levels of existential dread painted across their faces so he doesn't think anyone paid his vocal stomach any mind.

His eyes shift to Genma, who's in the row next to him. Genma is staring at the board with such a confused expression that Iruka can't even find it funny because he feels so bad. Genma was squinting at the board, his glasses firmly in place on his face as he eyes the board with an intensity that leaves Iruka almost wanting to make a joke about giving him and the SMARTboard some alone time. His glasses are ridiculously thick, which adds to the comedic effect, and Iruka absentmindedly wonders just  _ how  _ Genma had been successfully maneuvering his way around school before finally putting them on. Then he remembers how Genma had crashed into him and realizes that 'successfully' was maybe pushing it.

He's chewing on what Iruka is  _ certain  _ is a sebon and Iruka watches as the piece of metal gets shifted from side to side in his mouth. Or maybe he was just watching his mouth. But that was for him and only him to know.

"Genma!"

Genma's head snaps up and he looks at Kushina with wide eyes, looking absolutely terrified at the prospect of having to answer whatever question she was going to throw at him.

Kushina, to her credit, doesn't look all  _ that  _ terrifying but Iruka is very well aware that the reason she was calling on him was because of her conversation with Anko yesterday. Later the same day after he had come home he had been met with Kushina flying down the stairs with countless papers in her hand while she ranted about ensuring every single one of her students passed, even if they couldn't add.

She was calling on Genma now to gauge how much he actually understood, but from the looks of it Iruka could confidently say it wasn't much. Kushina thought so too, but no one could tell but him. He'd spent enough time with her to be able to tell when she was getting nervous and was trying to hide it.

Genma smiles sweetly, his mouth wrapping around the potential weapon. "Yeah, Mrs?"

"Could you tell me what would be the class boundary in the set?" She asks, gesturing to where she had begun to write it out in careful handwriting.

Iruka could swear he could see sweat starting to bead on Genma's forehead as he stares at the board nervously. 

CLASS WIDTH: 7

CLASS LIMIT:

55-59

60-64

65-69

70-79

80-84

85-89

CLASS BOUNDARIES:

"Um." Gema starts, looking down from his notes to the board again. "Uhhhh." He's shifting his weight from one leg to the other and he continues to squirm before slowly holding up four fingers for Kushina to see before shrugging and dropping his hand. 

Kushina's eye twitches ever so slightly and she begins to reexplain how to find the solution, this time in greater detail.

Iruka props his cheek onto his hand and looks at Genma. 'He has the IQ of a ritz cracker.' He thinks dreamily. 'I'm gonna marry him.'

Behind Genma, Anko smothers a laugh into her sleeve, her shoulders shaking from silent laughter.

Despite the setback, ritz crackers apparently  _ do  _ have a capability to learn because Genma's soon nodding along with what Kushina is saying and scribbling furiously in his notebook as he tries to keep up with what she's writing on the board.

Looking down at his own half hearted notes, Iruka picks up his pen and began doodling in the corner of his paper. He keeps absentmindedly scratching out lines with the pencil and soon enough the doodle begins to take shape. When he notices the shape was formed like a pair of eyes, he scribbles it out with more force than necessary and forces himself to pay attention to what Kushina is saying.

Kushina is halfway through explaining just  _ why  _ they needed derivatives when her mouth suddenly snaps shut and she looks directly at Genma.

"Is that a  _ sebon?"  _ She blurts out, moving from the front of the room to stand in front of him, eyeing the thin object protruding from his mouth.

"Whaaat?" Genma draws out the word and he shifts the not-sebon to the other side of his mouth. "Of course not. Weapons are  _ strictly  _ forbidden in schools, obviously. Of course, I wouldn't have one in my  _ mouth.  _ This." He points to his mouth. " _ This  _ is a  _ toothpick. _ " He nods sagely and looks up at Kushina with wide, innocent looking eyes. 

She cocks an eyebrow at him, clearly unimpressed and he throws up his hands. "Listen, Mrs. It's a  _ toothpick.  _ This fucking school won't let me wear my bandana on my head cuz 'there are no hats allowed in school and bandanas constitute as headwear' and now you're gonna take away my toothpick too? When will these injustices  _ end. _ " 

Anko mutters something that sounds suspiciously like 'that  _ is  _ an actual sebon' into her water bottle as she begins to drink from it and Kushina looks like she's using every bit of willpower to not instantly murder the kid in front of her through her words alone. Her eye twitches and Iruka has to press his forehead against the desk to keep himself from laughing outright.

Genma seems to be aware of this and promptly informs her that Principle Sarutobi was fine with it. 

The bell rings before Kushina has a chance to respond and she just sighs as she moves out of the way so that the rest of the kids can exit the classroom. 

Iruka shoves his notebook into his backpack and slid off the seat, looking up at Kushina as he starts to make his way towards Kotetsu and Izumo, who are waiting patiently at the door for him. 

She flicks a long strand of hair out of her face and mutters something about “weapons in school” and “lack of care on the administrations end” and fixes Iruka with a small smile that almost masked her grimace and told him to have a good lunch break before returning to her desk and rummaging through it.

When he approaches the two boys waiting for him they eyed him curiously and ask him what she’s doing. Iruka shrugs and they walk down the hall towards the cafeteria. 

The walls in the hallway looked normal at first glance but as they continue down the hallways, Iruka starts to notice strange marks in the hallways that were filled up sloppily. He doesn’t pay them any mind at first, but when they keep recurring he pauses and runs his fingers down one of the indentions in the wall, feeling the rough areas with his fingertips as he traces what looks like large claw marks. The gashes were barely visible but when he sweeps his hands over it, the rough texture of the filling contrasts with the rest of the smooth wall.

“Iruka? What the hell are you _ doing? _ ” Kotetsu asks, peering over his shoulder, looking at the wall Iruka’s hand was on.

“What are these makings from?” 

Izumo looks over his other shoulder. “Markings,” he repeats, squinting at the wall. “You see any markings, Ko?”

“Nothing except the ‘FUCK YOU’ Hidan wrote last week.” He taps below the sloppy red handwriting at the top of the wall. “I can’t believe they haven’t covered it up yet.” He screws up his face, before turning to the both of them’ “You think they finally accepted the inevitable?”

“They never put in that much effort before.” Izumo offers, tilting his head up as he looks up at the handwriting. Iruka doesn’t know what the guy had used to write, but it looks just like how writing looked in horror movies. His nose crinkles and shakes his head lightly before refocusing on the markings on the wall. 

He picks at the filling with his nails and some of it comes off and trickles down the wall and onto the floor.

Grabbing the closest person to him, he jerks them next to him without taking his eyes off of the wall. “ _ Look. _ ” He outlines the gash in the wall and looks expectantly at Izumo, who’s frowning.

“Iruka,” He says slowly, putting his hand on the wall, “There’s nothing there.”

“But can’t you at least feel the difference in the wall material?” Iruka persists, not willing to give up just yet. He grabs Izumo’s hand and puts it over where the gash was. 

Izumo’s face is blank as he runs his hand down the same spot before shaking his head. Kotetsu repeats the same action and also shakes his head, before squinting up at Iruka. “You sure you slept well last night?” his voice is tinged with humor but there’s a certain tightness to it that Iruka can’t exactly follow.

Retracting his hand from the wall, Iruka plasters a grin on his face and shrugs. “Probably not."

Kotetsu eyes him with a strange expression before shrugging in return. "Okay, we're losing precious lunchtime. Let's go!" He claps his hands together twice and herds them towards to hinged doors. "Food!" He drags out the word as he throws his head back dramatically and swings the door open.

They make their way to a table in the back where Anko and Genma were lounging against it. When they hear them approaching, they spin around and greet them.

"Hey whores." Anko nods and Genma gives them a two fingered salute as they sit down next to them.

"Hm." Iruka nods and slams his head against the table.

"You good?"

"Iruka's been seeing claw markings on the walls in the school." Izumo tells them matter-of-factly. If Iruka's face had been up, he would have seen them exchange a mixture of facial expressions ranging from sharp worry to fear, but by the time he looks up, they're all staring at him in amusement.

"Didn't I tell you to get a good night's sleep yesterday?" Anko chides him, reaching out and tapping his nose with her manicured hand.

"I  _ did."  _ Iruka rolls his eyes and bats her hand away.

"Says the one seeing cat scratches on the walls." Anko fires back, raising an eyebrow at Iruka as she crosses her arms over her chest.

"They weren't  _ cat  _ scratches," Iruka mumbles into his hand, leaning his head to the right to get a better view of Anko's expression, trying to gauge it. 

"Dog scratches?" Izumo offers and Iruka shakes his head. The gashes had been too big to be from a dog. He scratches the table absently with his left hand, imitating the shape of the cuts in the wall.

"... _ Bird  _ scratches?" Kotetsu mutters to himself, training off thoughtfully. He pauses when he seems everyone eyeing him strangely. "What? It's possible! Haven't you ever gotten chased by the crows around here? Those things are  _ vicious- agh!"  _ He yelps and jerks his leg back, rubbing at his shin and looking accusingly at Anko who just continues smiling brightly without sparing a glance at Kotetsu. 

"That's abuse." He tells her in scandalized voice when she doesn't acknowledge his glares.

"What is?" She tilts her head to the left, looking at him innocently. If Iruka hadn't seen her leg snap out and nail Kotetsu in the shin, he would have believed her. She was an incredibly talented actress. Iruka files away that bit of information for later and chooses to laugh along with Izumo and Genma at Kotetsu's sputtering.

The conversation shifts away from the apparently nonexistent wall gashes and Iruka lazily drags his eyes around the cafeteria, observing all the new faces that were scattered throughout the room. His friends' conversation is barely audible as his eyes shift from table to table. 

A loud bark of laughter and the sound of something shattering draws his attention to the opposite side of the room, where he sees Kurenai looking absolutely unimpressed while a guy next to her is dying from apparent laughter. Next to them is another guy with an absolutely terrifying bowlcut and an even more horrifying green tracksuit. Iruka isn't sure what he did to warrant such a reaction from the other guy, but he isn't really convinced that he  _ wants  _ to know.

Losing interest, Iruka starts to look away when another person at the table stands up and pushes himself off the table fluidly and walks towards the trash can, a balled up bag of Veggie Sticks in his right hand. He had been hidden behind Green Bean over there so Iruka hadn't noticed him but now he couldn't stop staring at him.

The guy was tall, with white spiky hair that seemed to be able to defy gravity and had a black cloth surgical mask carefully placed over his nose and mouth. Combined with the white hoodie with a denim jacket over it, ripped jeans, and doc martens, he was  _ almost  _ enough to get Iruka to forget about his marriage plans with Genma. 

Iruka blinks twice. He should stop staring at him before the guy notices and things get awkward. He keeps staring. He can't make out his face from the distance (the bit that's visible), but Iruka's sure he has a nice face. The guy tosses the bag in the trash lazily and spins on his heel and Iruka decides that even if he  _ doesn't  _ have a nice face, he definitely has a nice  _ something else.  _ Not that Iruka was paying attention.

He hears a derisive snort and glances up towards Genma, who's eyeing Kakashi with the most amused expression that Iruka had seen on his face all day. And that was saying something.

"Ay! Kakashi!" Genma's voice rings through the cafeteria and bounces off the wall, amplifying the sound of his shout.

Kakashi freezes in his tracks, his already slumped posture dropping even more before he tilts his head up, probably looking up at the ceiling in defeat, and slowly spins around and begins walking towards their table.

"What." He asks in a bored drone as he gets closer. He doesn't say the word like a question, more like a statement, Iruka notes absentmindedly as Kakashi stops a few feet away, hands jammed in his pockets.

Genma smirks and pushes himself up off the table and leans as close to Kakashi as possible with the table between them. "FLATASS!" He crows, his face lighting up in childish glee as he points at the person standing in front of him.

Iruka's eyes zero in on Kakashi's ass and can't help the incredulous expression that crosses his face. His ass was  _ not  _ flat. Not as nice as his  _ own,  _ per se but- he clamps down on his train of thought and forces his eyes on a less compromising area, hoping that no one noticed his blatant gawking.

Kakashi keeps staring at Genma with a perfectly uninterested expression, eyes trained on his sharp grin.

Iruka looks from one to the other and wonders if they were rivals or something. He looks at Genma but his smile doesn't seem vicious, just slightly immature. He can't really read Kakashi's face with half his face covered but he doesn't look too angry.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat and looks at Kotetsu, Izumo, and Anko to gauge how they're reacting. 

They don't seem particularly concerned, chatting amongst themselves and occasionally looking up at Genma and Kakashi with poorly concealed amusement.

Finally, Kakashi cracks and his slouch straightens out ever so slightly. "Maa, Genma. You keep talking shit and my ass won't be the only thing that's flat." He draws, quirking an eyebrow. He sounds like he's smiling.

Genma's grin goes wider. "Why Kakashi, I thought you'd never ask." He uses his arms to push himself off the table he was leaning on and rounds it, walking towards Kakashi. About halfway to him, he dramatically blows him a kiss. Kakashi reaches out, grabs it, brings it to his chest for a moment before promptly tossing it towards the nearest trash can.

Genma laughs and flips him off before walking past him and dramatically throwing himself at another boy who's walking towards him. The boy freezes up for a moment before sighing, resigned to his fate and lets Genma grab him and dip him downwards. And kiss him straight on the mouth.

All of Iruka's hopes of marrying him are instantly thrown down the drain and he's left gaping at the two of them.  _ That's my luck!  _ He thinks to himself wryly, shaking his head.

Kakashi seems very well aware of the fact that he was used as a prop to enable Genma to make out with his boyfriend and he just lifts a hand up in a small, awkward wave and turns around and shuffles back to his table, reshoving his hands in his pockets as he goes.

"Hey! Izumo! Why don't you do that to  _ me?"  _ Kotetsu demands and Izumo fixes him with a sharp expression that did nothing to hide the pink tinting his cheeks.

"Because," he explains patiently, not looking particularly happy with where the conversation was going. "we're not dating. Or anything." He waves his hands around vaguely, but they lack his normal enthusiasm.

Kotetsu blinks. "We're not?" He squeaks, but it's soon followed by a hurried "Psh. As if I'd date  _ you.  _ I'm already stuck with you anyways. Could you imagine." He laughs but it sounds a bit hollow to Iruka.

Izumo's eyes flicker down to where his hands are resting on the table. "Yeah." He says quietly, sounding sullen. If Kotetsu notices, he doesn't show it, busying himself with picking at his nails with a little too much focus.

Anko and Iruka share knowing expressions and nod to each other in silent agreement. Or at least Iruka thinks so. She might actually be thinking about flying snakes on tricycles for all he knows. He opens the steaming ramen cup and straight up drinks it, ignoring the scalding heat on his tongue.

The bell rings a little bit after Genma drags over his starstruck looking boyfriend and introduces him as Raidou.  _ Ro,  _ Iruka had realized and was left feeling like the biggest moron on the planet.

Dragging himself off the table and throwing out the instant ramen cup he had quickly scarfed down in the five minutes before the bell rang, he follows Genma to his next class, internally thanking whatever was out there for allowing him to know people in his classes so he didn't have to spend time wandering aimlessly around the school looking for his rooms.

-

Iruka is squirming in his seat, ten minutes into his last period of the day. His teacher, who walked in three minutes late drinking what suspiciously looked like vodka from a SMARTwater bottle, had thrown down her bag carelessly onto the desk and promptly told Iruka to just call her Tsunade.

Iruka had been so appalled that all he could do was nod and scramble to the nearest seat while she turned on the projector and skimmed through the PowerPoint, looking for wherever they had left off.

He pulls out his purple ringed notebook and flips to the first page where he carefully writes "APAH Notes: Iruka Umino, Period 6, 9/4/19" in careful handwriting. 

"AHA!" Iruka looks up at Tsunade, who's triumphantly looking at one of the slides titled "Unit Three Cont.: Hellenistic Greece". On the screen there was a statue with its genitals circled with a neon green color. Next to it was a matching green arrow and the words 'Teacher's Fun Fact: The Greeks Seemed to Like Bigger Balls and Smaller Dicks. Next Time You're at an Awkward Family Dinner, Spice Up The Conversation With This Fun Fact!' 

Iruka's eyes bug out of his face and he has to pinch his arm to keep from laughing outright; no one else was laughing so it would be weird if he did. When he looks at his classmates, they're talking softly to themselves, occasionally gesturing to the screen. Tsunade probably did this often then. Iruka grins, deciding that he likes his AP Art History teacher very much. 

"Okay brats," Tsunade's strong voice reverberates throughout the room. "We're starting Unit Three today. I know I said I'd have your Unit Two Tests graded and back to you by today, but I forgot and so you'll just have to suck it up and wait another day to see all those lovely Fs in your gradebook." Her golden eyes move to Iruka and she points at him with one manicured finger from behind her desk. "You! Get the notes from someone next to you. Or don't, I don't care. We have things to learn and naked men to stare at!" 

She moves to grab something from her desk when the door lets out a low groan as it's pushed open and everyone's heads snap in its direction.

Kakashi steps into the room, slouch in place and hands in his pockets, somehow managing to look both perfectly innocent and absolutely bored, all while having a mask covering most of his face. He brings one of his hands up in a two fingered salute. "Yo." His closed eyes turn upwards in what looks like a mock smile. 

"Don't ' _ yo'  _ me, brat." Tsunade growls, making over-exaggerated bunny ears with her fingers. "We've had this conversation every. Single. Damn. Day. If you're gonna come in late, come through the window." She points to the window next to Iruka, which was five stories up. She didn't look like she was joking.

"Maa, Tsunade," Kakashi begins, putting his hands up in a placating gesture. "I met a lost new student and had to help him find his classes. I'll be on time tomorrow, I promise. Scout's honor." He lays his fist on his chest.

Tsunade looks like one of her veins are about to pop as she narrows her eyes in a sharp glare and spins around and points at Iruka. " _ THAT  _ new student?" 

Kakashi nods gravely. "I went to the bathroom after."

Their teacher takes a deep breath and just waves her hand dismissively. "Just sit down."

He grins and saunters down the aisle before sliding into the empty seat next to Iruka and tossing his backpack carelessly onto the desk and dumping all the contents onto it, which was a grand total of one notebook, a taped up broken mechanical pencil, and an eraser. 

Iruka's eyebrow raised up as he watches the kid from the corner of his eye, chewing his lip to keep the nagging smile from crossing onto his face. He forces himself to listen to Tsunade explaining the differences between Classical and Hellenistic art and begins taking notes, mentally reminding himself to the notes he missed from Izumo after class.

_ Squeak. _

Iruka's eyebrows furrow when he hears a low grating squeak from his left, but he forces himself to keep paying attention to what the teacher is saying.

_ Squeak.  _

Gritting his teeth, he presses down too hard as he's writing the word "Dynamism" and his lead snaps. Slowly rolling his head up towards the ceiling and muttering a pained  _ why _ he clicks the mechanical pencil twice and being taking notes once more, gnawing at his lip to keep from saying something that was not very school appropriate.

_ Squeak.  _

Iruka's head snaps in Kakashi's direction and narrows his eyes at the kid. One of his legs was upright on the seat, with his head resting on his knee, and every time he moved his leg it would bump the metal bit on the desk and cause the sound.

_ Squeak. _

Iruka clears his throat and Kakashi looks up at him, pausing his movement. "You need something?" He asks him flatly and Iruka just shakes his head and goes back to his notes. No point getting into an argument now and making a fool out of himself on his first day. Besides, he likes Tsunade and wants her to like him. He pushes his glasses back up his nose with his wrist.

_ Squeak. _

"Do you  _ mind? _ " Iruka hisses at him from under his breath, glaring at Kakashi with as much irritation he could pour into a single expression.

Kakashi looks up at him with a bored expression and shifts in his seat. 

_ Squeak. _

Iruka's face screws up with disbelief.  _ Is he serious…? _

_ Squeak. _

Inhaling deeply, he plasters a polite smile onto his face, the type of smile that makes his cheeks feel like they're gonna split in two. "I'm sorry, could you  _ please  _ stop making that noise? It's really hard to concentrate with it, thanks!" He asks him sweetly, trying not to grit his teeth.

Kakashi looks completely disinterested as he regards Iruka coolly and dispassionately slips his leg off the seat and onto the floor. There's a dull  _ clomp  _ when his boot makes contact with the floor, but other than that there's no other distracting noises.

Iruka smiles brightly at him, a real smile this time, and thanks him before going back to his notes.

He gets about another page in before he hears a distinct  _ Squeak  _ and his entire body tenses up. Gripping his pencil more than was probably considered the norm for pencil holding, he glances at Kakashi from the corner of his eye and bites back a word that conveniently rhymes with motherducker. 

The guy had moved his  _ other  _ leg so that it was positioned on the seat under his other thigh. The sole of his boot was tapping rhythmically against the metal and what had before been a few squeaks with intervals was quickly turning into a symphony of squeaks.

Iruka grinds his jaw, feeling the muscles in it twitch. He can distantly remember his promise to not commit homicide on his first of class but keeping up his resolve was getting harder and harder by the second.

_ Squeeeaakk. _

" _ Kakashi."  _ Iruka growls. "Please. Be.  _ Quiet. _ " He enunciates each word, not even bothering to hide his irritated expression.

Iruka can't see his face, but based on the way Kakashi's eyes are turning up, he'd bet the $4.78 he has in his wallet that he was grinning cheekily at him and that made Iruka want to flip the guy's desk. With him in it.

_ I’m a good person. I’m a good person. I’m a good person. I’m- _

_ SQUEAKKKKK. _

Both of Iruka’s palms hit the desk abruptly and he whips his head around to glare at the other boy. “Kakashi.” He intakes a sharp breath of air. “ _ Stop. _ ” His voice echoes throughout the room and suddenly the room goes deathly silent.

Tsunade, who paused mid lecture when Iruka had hit the desk, furrows her brows at them. Most of the other people in the class are also staring at them and Iruka can feel his face begin to burn with embarrassment. There’s a stifled cough to his right and he catches Genma almost inhale his not-sebon from wheezing from trying to control his laughter. His eyes then shift to Kotetsu, who’s fist is shoved so far back his throat that they’ll probably have to perform the Heimlich maneuver soon. Izumo is looking down at his desk with a controlled expression. Iruka looks back at the teacher, who looks like she’s two seconds from either just leaving the classroom or just killing them both then and there. 

Arms crossed over her chest and fingers tapping listlessly at her forearms, she regards them cooly with a sharp expression that Iruka can’t exactly read. He shrinks farther back into his seat, squirming under her gaze.

“Kakashi,” She finally sighed, shaking her head slightly. “If he asked you to stop, why didn’t you stop?”

When all she gets is a shrug in response she narrows her eyes and walks behind her desk, pulling out a sheet of laminated paper. “I was going to assign this later on this week,” she starts, grabbing a sharpie off of the messy desk and scribbling something on it, “But since we’re obviously not able to sit still and pay attention,” She glares at the students pointedly, “I’m assigning it now.”

‘Your assignment is to compare and contrast the similarities and differences in Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic art. You need to write a short paper of at least three pages  _ and  _ a creative project of sorts. Poster Board, PowerPoint, whatever. ” She casually flips through the PowerPoint slides before stopping at a slide titled ‘Project’ with the requirements listed out. “Take a picture of this. You will be working in groups of four -groups that  _ I  _ picked- and you have two weeks to get it done starting today. No complaining.” She runs her fingers over her mouth, zipping it shut and the class falls silent as she continues to look at the list in her hand with an expressionless expression.

Cringing internally, Iruka hopes that his classmates don’t blame him for this. He looks down and stares at his notes. His handwriting is shaky from constantly stopping and the lines are too dark from pressing too hard against the paper. He frowns to himself, now he was going to have to redo his notes. 

Tsunade starts calling out names and soon kids are standing up and dragging their stuff with them and getting in their groups. Iruka notes that Kakashi still hasn’t moved and scowls. He hopes he doesn’t end up with him. It’s unlikely though, he thinks to himself, Tsunade probably didn’t want to deal with them arguing for the next two weeks. Nodding to himself, he relaxes and listens for his name. Tsunade wouldn’t do that to herself.

Except that apparently she would. 

‘Group Four!” She barks out, holding the list in front of her. “Kakashi Hatake, Obito Uchiha, Genma Shiranui, and Iruka Umino!” 

Running his hands down his face, fingers digging into the skin below his eyelids, Iruka groans and lethargically turns his head to look at Kakashi, who looked like he was trying to stab Tsunade dead with his eyes alone. Tsunade meets his gaze and sends him a cheerful smile before announcing the next group.

Noticing that the other groups had all turned their desks towards each other so that they were all facing, Iruka gets out of his chair and turns it as quietly as possible before sitting back down in his seat, facing Kakashi. Kakashi doesn’t move from his position, doing a marvelous job pretending that Iruka didn’t exist. Iruka smiles blandly to himself, trying not to show how much Kakashi was getting on his nerves. 

Finally, Genma and his other group member finally drag their desks over, Genma shoving his next to Iruka’s and plopping down ungracefully into the seat. Obito pauses, hovering above Kakashi with an unsure expression for a split second before scoffing and grabbing his desk and forcibly turning it and pushing it into Iruka’s desk so that there’s no gaps, ignoring Kakashi’s indignant noises of complaint. He then shoves his own desk in front of Genma’s and sits down with a huff, muttering something about five year olds. 

Kakashi’s head whips around and glares at Obito. Obito scoffs and sticks his tongue out. Kakashi rolls his eyes and glares at Iruka, who narrows his own eyes in response. Now that he’s close enough to see his face, Iruka notices that he has two mismatched eyes; his left eye was black, with a thin scar bisecting his eyebrow and going down past his mask, and his right eye was a light grey in color.  _ He has nice eyes, _ Iruka thinks absently,  _ too bad he doesn’t have a nice personality. _

Genma clears his throat awkwardly and shoves his notebook onto Iruka’s desk. “Here you can like. Take pictures of my notes or whatever. Just stop eye fucking each other in my presence, it’s really weird.”

_ “Genma.”  _ Iruka was starting to regret not killing him this morning.

“Okay, bad joke. Sorry.” Genma holds up his hands but he doesn’t look one bit sorry. 

Rolling his eyes, Iruka takes out his phone and begins taking pictures of Genma’s notes. They’re surprisingly neat and thorough, but Iruka doesn’t mention that out loud. He just dutifully takes the pictures and hands Genma his notebook with a quiet “thanks”.

Obito glances over and mentions that Genma didn’t take notes on the Mesopotamian Unit and passes his own notes to Iruka.

As Iruka moves to grab them he finally takes a close look at Obito and his fingers freeze right above the notebook, hovering in midair. Obito had the same eyes as Kakashi but reversed. On his right side were thin scars wrapping around a grey iris and his left eye was the same black as the person next to him. Iruka tries to look away before Obito catches him staring but he just laughs at Iruka and shrugs. “When we were little we decided that since we lived together we needed a way for people to know since we don’t look alike, so we took one of Uncle M’s carving knives and swapped eyes,” he tells him matter-of-factly, a pleasant smile plastered onto his face.

“Idiot.” Kakashi scoffs, rolling his eyes. “ _ I  _ have heterochromia. You just  had  to lose an eye and pick  _ my  _ color as a replacement eyeball.”

“When we were little we got in an accident in the woods behind our house. That’s how we got our scars and I lost an eye. I was already blind in that eye though so it doesn’t matter!” He adds cheerfully, waving his blue pen in the air.

“I’m...glad?” Iruka says uncertainty, unsure of what was the appropriate response to that bit of information.

“Me too man! Imagine if I had actually lost my  _ good  _ eye.  _ That  _ would have been such a drag.” He pauses and frowns, before turning to Kakashi again. “Bro we  _ have  _ to stop hanging around our cousin's friends, I’m picking up their lingo. Not ideal!”

“We don’t hang out with a bunch of eight year olds?”

“Then  _ why  _ are they always in our house?” Obito shoots back. Kakashi doesn’t bother answering so Iruka counts that as Obito’s win. He sees Genma flip to a page in the back of his notebook titled “Obito vs Kakashi” and adds another tick mark under Obito’s name before slapping the book shut once more.

They keep talking about the project and Iruka decides he likes Obito. He’s funny and loud and doesn’t go out of his way to annoy people like  _ someone  _ in their group. Kakashi doesn’t pay Iruka any attention, managing to converse perfectly fine with Genma and Obito without acknowledging Iruka once. 

Iruka entertains himself by repeating whatever Kakashi says under his breath with weird expressions. Obito silently pokes at Genma who nods and opens his notebook to a blank page and scribbles “Iruka vs Kakashi” on the top and puts a point on Iruka’s side. If Kakashi notices, he doesn’t say anything.

The conversation drifts to something that Iruka doesn’t know about, some fall festival that was coming up, and Iruka begins to doodle absentmindedly in his notebook, shading the sketches with quick strokes. When he looks down at his handiwork he immediately recognizes the shape of the gashes he’d seen in the wall earlier. As he looks up from the paper, he sees Kakashi eyeing the drawing sharply before he notices Iruka looking at him and his gaze slips back into its usually bored expression. 

Before Iruka has a chance to mull over Kakashi’s expression, Obito offers that they all go over to his and Kakashi’s house after school to work on the project and they all agree, hoping to be able to get most of it done in one go. 

“Our little cousin Itachi will be over that day. Sasuke too, but I don’t think my uncles will mind.” He had offered.

On Friday Iruka finds himself stuffed in the back of Kakashi’s black and white Jeep with Genma as he tears down the small roads at a speed that has Iruka and Genma gripping each other for dear life. Kakashi swerves to avoid a pothole and Iruka lets out an undignified shriek that has Kakashi raising an eyebrow at him from the rearview mirror. “You need anything?” He asks and Iruka can hear the smug smirk in his voice.

“Yeah, I need to see your license.” Iruka retorts, fuming at him as Genma retracts his legs from Iruka’s lap where they had landed when he flailed to try to gain his balance when Kakashi swerved. 

“I don’t have one!” Kakashi tells him in a chipper voice, spinning the wheel sharply to the right.

“PULL OVER.” Genma wails, shoving his face into Iruka’s shoulder. “I’m too hot to die.”

Iruka was very much over his crush on Genma but he was still inclined to agree that yes, that would be very unfortunate.

Obito slaps Kakashi’s arm, the one that was steering, and the car lurches from the force. Iruka and Genma jump in their seats but Kakashi and Obito don’t bat an eye at the erratic driving, which did little to put Iruka’s anxieties at rest. 

_ I should have told Naruto I love him.  _ He thinks miserably, trying to rip his arm out of Genma’s death grip.

“Kakashi  _ has  _ his license.” Obito snaps, crossing his arms. “Hashi would  _ never  _ let him even touch a steering wheel without one.”

Kakashi scoffs and turns into a driveway and slows down significantly as he nears the house. Iruka has the feeling that if ‘Hashi’ found out about Kakashi’s driving, he’d never hear the end of it. For a second he entertains the idea of casually mentioning his driving in front of him, but decides he wasn’t  _ that  _ much of an ass.

Kakashi hops out of the car and moves his seat forwards so Iruka and Genma can crawl out. Genma gets out first, unsteadily sliding out of the car before gripping Kakashi’s shoulders as he jumps off of the edge of the car. He then looks Kakashi dead in the eyes and with both hands still on his shoulders tells him flatly, “Kakashi man, I’ve known you since kindergarten. I love you, so  _ please  _ listen to me when I tell you you’re the worst driver I’ve ever had the displeasure of riding with.”

Kakashi regards him coolly and for a moment Iruka thinks Kakashi’s going to punch him, but then he suddenly laughs loudly and leans his head against Genma’s chest, shoulders shaking with mirth. 

Iruka stares at them wide eyed from the car, not wanting to try to squeeze his way past them, since they were standing right in front of the door. He sighs quietly and patiently waits for them to finish, not really minding the wait. Kakashi has a nice laugh, he realizes. Though he’s been with Kakashi for a week now, this is the first time that he’s actually heard Kakashi’s laugh and the wait was well worth it. Iruka wouldn’t mind listening to it for an hour straight. Too bad he couldn’t stand Kakashi’s personality for over an hour. 

Obito finally takes pity on him and moves up the other seat so Iruka can get out through the other side. He bounces on his heels as he lands on the ground and Obito gestures towards the house and they walk inside, letting Kakashi and Genma have their moment. 

“I’M BACK!” Obito hollers as soon as he swings the door open and Iruka follows him inside quietly, not wanting to disturb the adults in the home. His nose is hit with the smell of smoke and he screws up his face, scanning the house.

It wasn't two stories, instead, it was more spread out, similar to most houses in Miami, and the house gave off very homey vibes. It's a nice house, Iruka decides as he looks towards the kitchen where he hears a frustrated groan and the distinct sound of pots falling to the ground.

A man with pale skin, long, spiky black hair and a permanently tired expression walks out of the kitchen and does a double take when he sees Iruka. “You.” he points at Iruka with a confused expression. “Are  _ not  _ Kakashi.”

Obito rolls his eyes. “Nah Uncle M, this is is Iruka. He came over for the project we have, remember?”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Iruka says politely, hoping the man can’t see him fidget underneath his gaze.

The man eyes him for a moment before shrugging. “Hn.” He grunts and brushes a strand of hair behind his ear. “Your uncle is in the back with Itachi and Sasuke. It’s my turn to make dinner but.” He gestures towards the kitchen where thick black smoke was billowing from. “I think we might order in.” he frowns and looks down at the spatula in his left hand, before pointing it at both of them. “ _ Never  _ put ice cold water in boiling water, it doesn’t end well.” And hurries back to the kitchen as the color of the smoke intensifies.

Iruka blinks twice, looking at the spot where the man had stood seconds before. Obito laughs. “Yeah, he’s like that, don’t worry.”

Iruka nods and asks Obito where they were going to study.

“Probably my room, unless you wanna deal with Itachi, Sasuke,  _ and  _ Hashi coming in every ten minutes.”

“Your room it is.” Iruka agrees and they both start down the hall just as the door opens again, much quieter than when Obito had opened it, and Iruka can hear Kakashi and Genma greet the adult in the kitchen before they soon catch up to Iruka and Obito.

“So, we’re making a PowerPoint, right?” Genma asks, leaning against Obito’s bed as he flips through his notebook.

“That’s the easiest one.” Obito agrees as he pulls out his Macbook and begins typing in his password.

Iruka looks at them in confusion. “Shouldn’t we...write the paper first?” He asks hesitantly, frowning slightly.

Without a single word (and without looking at him, might Iruka add) Kakashi pulls out a packet of stapled papers and tosses it towards Iruka, who catches it against his chest. He’s about to snap at Kakashi when he looks down at the paper in his hands and he realizes it’s the completed paper they had to write. He glances up at Kakashi disbelievingly and flips through the pages. There were  _ six  _ of them. The requirement was three. 

Iruka scans it and finds that Kakashi’s writing was very well thought out and he begins to feel bad for not helping with it. “Oh. Uh, thanks Kakashi but you didn’t have to write it yourself, we would have helped-”

Kakashi shrugs but still keeps his eyes averted away from Iruka. “It doesn’t matter, I didn’t mind writing it.”

“But still,” Iruka insists, “It’s not fair to you.”

“Maa, Iruka, you don’t get it.” Kakashi drawls, finally turning to look at him. “I wrote it because I don’t trust you all to do a good job on it.”

Iruka sputters, looking from Kakashi to the paper over and over again as he tries to find something to say. Kakashi just sends him one of his eye-smiles and plops down onto the bed next to Obito. Fuming silently, Iruka sits down next to Genma and leans his head against Genma’s shoulder, muttering obscenities under his breath. Genma laugh softly and asks him if he thinks they should use the Venus de Milo or Laocoön and His Sons for the Hellenistic example in their PowerPoint.

Iruka curls his lips into a pout and points at the second sculpture.

They’re about halfway done with the PowerPoint when Obito’s door suddenly creaks open and two boys are staring at them with large black eyes. They zero in on Iruka and Iruka smiles hesitantly, before remembering how Obito had called Itachi his  _ little  _ cousin and Sasuke just his cousin. He waves at the younger one. “Hi! You must be Itachi!”

Both of the kids freeze and he hears Kakashi stifle a snort behind him. Then the older of the two smiles politely at Iruka. “Actually,  _ I’m  _ Itachi.” he offers before suddenly throwing himself at Obito while screeching “I TOLD YOU TO STOP DOING THAT YOU  _ BUTT _ !” at the top of his lungs. Sasuke keeps on staring at Iruka dispassionately and Iruka shifts slightly under his gaze. Eccentric 8 year olds he could handle, ones that looked at you like they were looking into your soul? Not so much. 

“I’m Iruka.” he offers awkwardly, giving up on trying to use names before the person themselves introduced themselves.

“Hn.” Saskue nods and looks at his older brother, who was heatedly whispering to Obito. Iruka can’t hear everything he’s saying but he definitely picks up the “I could end your life in an  _ instant.”  _ and looks the other way. Can’t tell the police anything if he doesn’t know anything, he reasons to himself.

Obito and Itachi keep exchanging loud whispers and Kakashi’s reading some random book with an obnoxious orange cover and Genma is doing everything possible to avoid interacting with the child, leaving Iruka feeling pressured to talk to him.

“So...tomatoes?” He asks, eyeing Sasuke’s blue shirt with small tomatoes printed all over it.

Sasuke’s expression seems to perk up a bit, though his face is still carefully blank and he nods. “My favorite.”

“Tomatoes are good.” Iruka agrees. “I wish  _ my _ little brother’s favorite food was something so healthy. He just wants to eat ramen.” he tells the kid and Sasuke does a double take.

“Your name is...Iruka?” He asks hesitantly and Iruka smiles encouragingly. 

“That’s me.”

“Your brother is Naruto?”

Iruka’s face splits into a grin. “Yeah! You know him?”

“He’s in my class. He keeps talking about you.” Sasuke informs him, before pausing. “He’s loud.”

Iruka huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, he definitely is.”

“I shared my cherry tomatoes with him at lunch. I don’t know if he liked them but he ate three of them and then gave me some of his ramen.”

“That was nice of the both of you.” Iruka hums, glad that the kid wasn’t just impassively glaring at him. 

Sasuke nods. “It was.” He agrees and then turns to Kakashi. “Uncle Hashi said to tell you dinner is ready and that we’re not getting takeout because he fixed Uncle M’s mess.”

“Ugh.” Kakashi groans. “Hashi always makes us eat  _ healthy  _ food.”

"He said you shouldn't complain about food in front of your guests." Sasuke tells him flatly, crossing his small arms, managing to look completely disinterested while simultaneously glaring at Kakashi.

Kakashi waves his hands dismissively, rolling his eyes. "Gemna's been here at  _ least  _ once a week since age 6, it's fine."

"What about  _ Iruka?"  _

Kakashi pauses and looks down at Iruka from the bed. "Oh yeah. Him. I forgot." He shrugs and daintily slides off the bed, avoiding all physical contact with Iruka and slides out the door.

Iruka eyes the spot where he disappeared flatly, internally counting down the hours until he could go home. He glances at his phone at the number 6:34 glares at him from the screen. He pockets his phone and looks at Genma with dead eyes.

Genma gives him a small apologetic smile, but it looks more like a cringe to Iruka. Genma pushes himself off the floor and extends a hand out to Iruka, who grabs it and lets himself be hauled up from the floor. 

Itachi soon loses interest in threatening Obito and smiles politely at them and beckons them to follow him and Sasuke out of the door and down the hall.

"Sorry about Kakashi," he says, tightening his low ponytail. "He's a little grouchy when it comes to strangers. He'll get better." 

Iruka cocks an eyebrow but doesn't say anything, just hums noncommittally as he follows the two boys through the darkening hallways. He looks out of a window and notices it's getting dark outside. Thick shadows are starting to wrap themselves around the woods outside and spreading across the lawn, stretching towards the house. Sasuke flips on a light and Itachi moves to close the blinds on the window and then keeps going, shutting every blind they pass and Sasuke flipping on every light switch he sees.

Iruka observes them quietly but when Obito and Genma don't mention anything he decides that the two kids were probably scared of the dark or something. 

They enter a warmly colored kitchen where a taller man with long brown hair thrown into a sloppy braid is finishing up dishing something into decorative red and blue ceramic bowls. He turns around when he hears them and smiles brightly at them, telling them to take a seat at the table since he was almost done and waves off their offers to help him.

He grabs two of the bowls and places them in front of Genma and Iruka, smiling warmly at them before turning to get the other bowls from the counter. When his husband enters the kitchen from a small door leading to the backyard, he hands him the salad bowl and tells him to put it on the table.

Madara does so without complaint, dutifully placing the bowl in the center of the table before walking back to the sink to wash his hands, moving out of Hashirama’s way as he brushes past him while carrying a stack of plates to the table.

Hashirama asks him to get utensils, throwing the words over his shoulder as he sets the plates down in front of Obito and tells him to distribute them across the table. Madara reappears with the utensils in hand and they’re all soon seated, except for Hashirama who quickly hurries to the kitchen one last time and shuts the blinds that hung over the glass door and flips on the light switch before walking back to the table.

The room is filled with a soft golden light that reflects nicely against the brown tones in the room and Iruka feels a bit of tension that he didn’t know he was carrying leave his shoulders. Slumping back slightly in his seat, he looks at the rest of the people, waiting for them to start eating before he does.

“Where’s Kakashi?” Hashirama asks, picking up the salad bowl and serving Sasuke some before handing it off to Itachi.

“Sulking.”

Hashirama’s hand freezes right above his fork and he lets out a quiet sigh, shaking his head softly, but doesn’t say anything. He picks up his fork and stabs the lettuce, bringing it to his mouth. The rest of them begin eating their own food and Iruka’s stuck staring at the empty seat right in front of him. 

About halfway through dinner Kakashi finally decides to make an appearance in the kitchen, still wearing his mask. He had changed out of his jeans into a pair of nike joggers and an oversized hoodie and he drags himself towards the fridge where he pulls out a jug of apple juice from the back of the fridge. His back is facing them so Iruka can’t see his face when he pulls down his mask and chugs the juice straight from the bottle but apparently Kakashi can still see Iruka’s disgruntled face because when he pulls his mask back up he turns around he uninterestedly points at the sign that read ‘KAKASHI’S. TOUCH AND DIE’ with a crudely drawn skull next to it before shoving it back in the fridge. He then grabs something else from it before shutting it and walks over to the sink and turns on the faucet, rinsing off whatever he was holding. He then grabs a knife and walks over to the table, sliding into his seat next to Sasuke and grabs his cousin’s plate. 

He places a red tomato in it and begins cutting it up in thin, even slices with the knife, before sliding the plate back to Sasuke. Sasuke gives him what is probably his version of a grin before turning to his plate and picking up one of the slices between his thumb and his index finger and popping the slice into his mouth. 

Iruka watches the kid in amusement before reverting his attention back to his own food, listening to what Hashirama was talking about. He suddenly hears a loud sniff and looks up at Sasuke, who is scrunching up his nose in an effort to reign in the snot that was starting to leak down his face. 

Hashirama wordlessly hands him a tissue, which Sasuke gratefully takes and blows his nose on loudly. Kakashi looks down at him with raised eyebrows and Sasuke glares at him. “What? My nose is running.”

“Did you ask it to walk instead?” Kakashi asks, playing with his fork, his nimble fingers running up and down its length.

Iruka chokes on his food and ends up coughing, but it was thankfully covered up by Obito and Genma making fun of him for his use of puns. He carefully averts his eyes, focusing on the bright orange sunglasses perched on Obito’s head, mentally telling himself to make Obito take them off and hide them if he ever meets Naruto.

“Hey, Iruka.” Obito says suddenly, focusing his gaze on him. “What’s your zodiac sign?”

“Gemini, why?” Iruka asks cautiously, eyeing him from across the table.

Obito waves his phone in front of his face. “Horoscope.” he tells him matter-of-factly, before scrolling through the phone and pausing. “Okay! Gemini. The sun will rise tomorrow and the crows will fly. There’s not much time left.” He finishes reading the sentence with a frown and a bone settling chill creeps across the room. 

Suddenly the lights go dim and the shadows are prominent, weaving their way around everything in their path, leaving thick black stains to indicate their presence. A dim breeze caresses the back of Iruka’s neck and he feels a chill run down his spine as he stiffens up, fingers gripping the table so hard that his skin is losing color. 

A lone howl shatters the terse silence and suddenly Iruka can hear screaming outside.  _ Deer,  _ he thinks to himself. He doesn’t know how he knows that. The screaming gets louder and Iruka covers his ears with his hands, trying to block out the jarring noise. It just seems to get louder.The shadows are getting darker and Iruka swears he sees his own shadow jump without him moving an inch.

There’s a noise that jerks his attention towards the kitchen door, the one that leads to the backyard where the woods are. The woods where Obito and Kakashi had their accident. The door is rattling and the blinds shake from the pressure. Iruka can barely make out the shape of a large animal crossing in front of it. He haunches his shoulders, staring ahead of him with wide eyes. 

Sasuke and Itachi have gone strangely still, looking straight ahead of them with unblinking eyes. Itachi’s glasses were slipping off his face but he doesn’t move them back up. They both look like marble statues. He shifts his attention off of them. Kakashi and Obito have carefully neutral expressions on their faces as they look down at their phones, pretending not to have noticed anything amiss. When Iruka glances over at Genma, he’s doing the same. 

He sees Hashirama exchange a glance with Madara, their expressions change so fast that Iruka can’t understand what it was supposed to mean but suddenly Hashirama is letting out a soft gasp of realization and standing up out of his chair. “I forgot to close the kitchen blinds, how stupid of me.” He says good naturally and stands up and hurries over to the window above the sink and pauses as his fingers brush the blinds. His expression narrows for a moment as he gazes out the window before he turns the blinds, closing them.

Immediately the pressure in the room eases up and it seems to get a little bit brighter. Hashirama laughs as he makes his way back to the table before addressing Genma and Iruka. “It’s getting late and it’s not too safe to be going out after dark. You should just spend the night here and we can drop you off tomorrow.”

Genma agrees without hesitation and Iruka nodded in agreement, not trusting his voice at the moment. Hashirama beams at them before turning to Sasuke and Itachi and telling them that they’d be sleeping in the same room as he and Madara so that Iruka and Genma would have a place to sleep. “You don’t want to sleep on that couch, trust me,” he tells Iruka with a laugh and Genma nods, telling him that he made that mistake once and he’d never do it again.

Iruka sends a text to Kushina, letting her know and she quickly responds with a  _ Have fun! And be safe! Be respectful to your hosts!  _ And he quickly responds before telling Hashirama that. 

“Perfect! You can stay in Kakashi’s room since Obito and Genma still have that  _ thing  _ they need to resolve.”

Kakashi looks like he wants to argue but doesn’t say anything, just crosses his arms and leans back into his chair glaring at his uneaten dinner.

Kakashi’s room is cleaner than Obito’s, everything was colored in blues, greys, and blacks as opposed to Obito’s bright color scheme. His bed was also bigger than Obito’s, but Obito’s gaming set took up most of his room so that was probably why his bed was smaller. There’s a small bookshelf in the corner of Kakashi’s room where everything was color coded and arranged by height. 

The bed was across from the large window, which had thin blue curtains billowing ever so slightly from the heater. His blinds were black with small strings hanging off of it.

Iruka plays with the edge of the borrowed pajamas, shirt’s sleeves were too short and the torso too long. The simple joggers were old and he had to roll them up his ankles to avoid tripping on them. He looks at Kakashi, who is flitting to different parts of his room, pulling things out and putting other stuff away. Iruka backs up a bit, trying to not get in his way and his back hits the door and he leans his head back against the cool material of the wooden door. 

Kakashi pauses in mid motion, eyes focusing on Iruka’s throat and Iruka instinctively swallows, glad that the dim light blotted out the blush that was forming on his face. 

Kakashi’s eyes are averted off of him so fast that he wonders if Kakashi had actually even looked at him in the first place and he mentally berates himself for making things weirder than they already were. He looks down at the doorknob longingly, wishing that he could have shared a room with Genma or Obito instead. It would have been way less awkward. 

Finally, Kakashi crawls onto his queen sized bed and slides under the crisp black and white covers, before looking over at Iruka and gesturing to the right side of the bed. Flushing, Iruka slowly rounds the bed and climbs into it, making sure to be as far away from Kakashi as possible.

Biting his lip he tugs at the braid he had thrown his hair into after changing into the clothing he had borrowed. He always took his hair down when he slept but he didn’t like people he didn’t know well seeing him with his hair down so this would have to do. He lets out a soft sigh and moves to take his glasses off when he notices that Kakashi hadn’t taken his mask off.

Raising an eyebrow at him he gestures to the mask with a wry smile. “You gonna keep that on?”

“Yeah.”

Iruka’s brow furrows and before he can stop himself from prying he blurts out “Why?”

“Because I’m self conscious about how I look.” Was Kakashi’s deadpan response and Iruka can practically  _ feel  _ his dry sarcasm radiating off of him.

“Sorry.” He bites at his lip, unsure of what else to say. He goes under the covers and slips his glasses off and places them on the nightstand next to the bed. “Goodnight.” 

He doesn’t get a response, but Iruka wasn’t expecting one anyway.

The hours slowly tick by and Iruka has to consciously restrain himself from tossing and turning, not wanting to wake Kakashi up. He was already grouchy enough even with a full nights sleep and Iruka doesn’t think he’d be able to deal with a sleep deprived Kakashi without breaking something. He lets out a soft huff, sparing a glance at Kakashi, wishing that he could fall asleep so quickly. Kakashi’s head was burrowed under his blankets, with only a sliver of one eye and his hair poking out from the thick blankets and his arms are wrapped tightly around the pillow. He hasn’t moved in hours and Iruka can’t help but wonder just  _ how  _ he managed to stay in one position for so long. Iruka always ends up in an entirely new position when he wakes up and he had been pretty sure everyone else did too. But looking at Kakashi, he wasn’t too sure about that now. The fact that he’s staring suddenly hits him and he shifts from his side to his back, glancing at the window.

His fingers dum a tune onto the mattress as he recites an old lullaby to himself, hoping that he’ll fall asleep before morning comes. He glances at the clock across the room that reads 1:18 A.M. in small white letters and he groans, arching his neck back. Halfway through his movement he pauses, feeling a chill spread through his body and his gaze immediately snaps towards the window. There’s a hulking shadow pacing in front of it and Iruka can hear its low growling as it continues to walk back and forth in front of the window. Hands trembling, Iruka lets out a shaky gasp and moves to get his glasses.

Cool fingers wrap around his wrist and pull his hand back and Iruka snaps his head to the side and sits up, where he makes eye contact with Kakashi. He opens his mouth to say something but Kakashi shakes his head and taps lightly on Iruka’s wrist in a pattern that he doesn’t recognize. Iruka frowns and tries to pull his wrist away but Kakashi’s grip tightens and his tapping increases. Iruka shakes his head as his eyes begin to blur and his head begins to droop and tries to pull away again. Kakashi’s fingers tighten and Iruka’s head hits the pillow before he realizes what happened. As his vision is going black the last thing he sees are Kakashi’s mismatched eyes fading from his view as his eyes drag themselves shut.

Distantly, he can hear a crow cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? projecting my crush on genma through iruka for a hot second? it's more likely than you think.🤪
> 
> also im legally not allowed to write kakairu unless they kinda hate each other at first lmaoo


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternate chapter title: iruka and naruto's great adventure :)
> 
> this isn't edited so bear w me :)

Morning finds Iruka curled up next to a warm pillow, golden sunlight spilling into the room from the cracked blinds and caressing his face softly. Whimpering softly, Iruka buries his head into the soft memory foam pillow, inhaling the strong scent of pine needles and cocoa powder. The smell tickles at his nose and he scrunches it up as he slowly nuzzles the pillow, unconsciously trying to commit the smell to memory.

The thick duvet covers hang heavy on his limbs, coaxing him to stay wrapped up in them forever. Iruka is more than willing to obey. Reaching out his arms as he stretches leisurely, his fingers brush against another pillow far away from him and he frowns sleepily. That pillow was too far away; his bed wasn't big enough for it to have gone so far without falling off the edge. 

Blearily, he cracks open his eyes, squinting when the bright sunlight burns his retinas, and gropes around for his glasses and slips them on his face.

He sits up with a start, grabbing the sheets and pulling them up towards his chest as he does so. He wasn't in his room. The room he's in is too big and too clean, with not enough color. He turns his head to the nightstand and zeros on a small picture frame.

Picking it up lightly, he brings it closer and looks at the photograph. It was a picture of Kakashi, aged probably about 12, standing with Obito and pretty girl with brown hair and purple marker on her cheeks that Iruka doesn't recognize. They're all smiling brightly into the camera and Iruka can tell Kakashi is smiling through his mask based on how his eyes curve upwards. 

His fingertips run over the photo lightly, tracing each of their faces absently before he gets to Kakashi's face and his fingers freeze mid stroke. Kakashi. He was in Kakashi's room. 

He instantly puts down the photo, taking great lengths to ensure he put it in the exact spot Kakashi had left it. If it was even an inch out of place Kakashi would probably get all sour and mopey because his stuff was messed with. 

Speaking of Kakashi, he was nowhere to be seen. Iruka doesn't know  _ why  _ he feels slightly disappointed when he realizes that Kakashi had left before he woke up but he files that neatly away in his "Worry About This Later" folder. 

Kakashi had managed to make his side of the bed without waking Iruka and so he wastes no time scrambling out of bed and smoothing over the sheets and covers. As he's fluffing up the pillow his eyes spot the small clock he had been watching listlessly the night before and suddenly pauses, thinking. He couldn't remember when he had fallen asleep last night, all he remembers was being hot and irritated and very wide awake and then suddenly everything was very cool and calm and very very exhausting. He must have finally passed out from sheer boredom, he muses to himself as he picks out the strands of hair that had fallen out of his braid and embedded themselves into the pillowcase.

Alone and quite bored, Iruka indulges his curiosity and observes Kakashi's room, not touching anything but definitely browsing through. 

Kakashi's peculiarly organized bookshelf that Iruka had noticed the night before was bigger than he had originally realized and he wanders over to it, staring at the color coded covers. He spots the orange book Kakashi had been reading yesterday and before he can stop himself his curiosity gets the better of him and he pulls the book out of the shelve and turns it over so he can see the title.

He exhales sharply and drops the book like he's been burned. And then quickly picks it up, dusts it off, and carefully puts it back on the shelf and backing away from it as fast as possible, mentally telling himself that  _ This  _ was why people didn't just go through other people's stuff. 

Personally, if Iruka was reading porn he'd put it somewhere less conspicuous, but maybe that was just him. Either way, he wasn't going to be touching any more of Kakashi's things, with or without his permission.

He eyes the bed and hopes that Kakashi had changed the sheets before letting Iruka sleep in them. 

Barking catches his attention and he pauses before creeping over to the window and peeking through the cracked open blinds. What he sees stops both his breath and his movements.

Kakashi outside, the sun streaming against his light colored hair and skin, making it almost painful to look at because of how brightly it all reflected the light. His mask was still firmly in place over his cheeks, nose, mouth, and chin but the rest of him seemed oddly exposed. Instead of his usual long sleeve shirts he wore, he had on a loose grey t shirt with the sleeves sloppily hacked off. The shirt was a bit short, exposing his belly button and Kakashi would pull it down a little every so often. He has a pair of old black joggers on, one of the pant legs is rolled up to his knee and the other one bunches up at the ankle, where he stood barefoot in the grass. Iruka has no idea how he's not dying of hypothermia, Iruka's cold just by  _ looking  _ at him.

Kakashi is bent over, hands on his knees as he looks out at something Iruka can't see. The sunlight is curling around his skin and hair, making it glow and Iruka feels his face start to heat up the longer he stares at him.

He pauses.

He's  _ staring.  _ He's about to pull himself away from the blinds when suddenly what Kakashi was looking at comes into full view. 

A large german shepherd suddenly sprints full speed at Kakashi, tennis ball in its mouth, and it lunges towards Kakashi who's straightened himself out and opened out his arms. The dog throws itself into Kakashi's outstretched arms and they both fall back onto the ground. Kakashi lands on his back and the dog lands on Kakashi's stomach but he's laughing and petting the dog everywhere his hands can reach. The dog leans forward and licks all the way up Kakashi's face, tail wagging hard as he squirms in his owner's grasp.

Iruka feels a small twinge in his chest and forces himself away from the blinds and out the room, nibbling on his bottom lip as he goes.  _ Am I turning into a stalker?  _ He wonders absently, pulling out his braid and brushing out the strands of hair with his fingers.  _ Do I have a thing for people I hate?  _ He pulls his hair back into a ponytail and frowns to himself.  _ No, that doesn't even make sense. I'm probably just tired. I didn't fall asleep until late last night so that's probably it.  _ He nods, glad to have sorted that out when something nudges at his mind and he stops, frowning.

Something happened last night, but he wasn't sure what. He fervently hopes he hadn't tried to cuddle Kakashi last night, that probably would have warranted Kakashi's early escape from his own room. He cringes to himself and opens the door softly and wanders down the hall. No one else is awake so after grabbing a cup of water from the kitchen and downing it in one go he opens the already unlocked door in the kitchen that leads to the backyard and walks around aimlessly, not wanting to interact with Kakashi just yet. He didn't have the patience at this time of the morning to deal with him.

He finds himself at the edge of the woods, staring up at the tall trees with their bright red, orange, and yellow leaves.

An orange leaf floats down lazily and Iruka plucks it from the air, examining it. Naruto had been absolutely  _ thrilled  _ to learn that there were orange leaves in the fall here, and he had started a collection of pressed leaves. Iruka couldn't open half the books in the house for fear of Naruto's precious leaves slipping out and getting lost under a piece of furniture.

The wind begins to pick up speed, whipping Iruka's ponytail back and forth on his neck and grabbing at his clothes. The leaf is ripped out of his hand and blown into the woods.

Right before it continues deeper into the forest, it seems to pause, coaxing Iruka to follow it. He doesn't even notice when he starts to walk forwards, towards the woods. He probably wouldn't have even noticed going into the woods, but he doesn't know for sure because suddenly there's a hand on his wrist that jerks him out of his stupor and he blinks slowly, before looking up at Kakashi. He looks down at Kakashi's pale fingers wrapped around him, cool to the touch. Iruka gets a mental flash of snow and winter and he quirks up his eyebrows as he looks up at Kakashi.

Kakashi drops his wrist immediately and Iruka covers his wrist with his opposite hand, rubbing at it slightly. Kakashi's hand on his wrist feels  _ familiar  _ but Iruka can't remember why.

"I don't think walking around the woods barefoot is the smartest thing to do, Iruka." Kakashi's thinly veiled amusement rubs Iruka the wrong way and he's soon scowling at the taller boy.

"Whoever said I was going into the woods?" He snaps, letting go of his wrist.

"So you  _ weren't  _ just walking towards the woods with intent so clear I could see it from the other side of the yard?"

"_No_ _ ,"  _ Iruka growls out, grinding his teeth together. 

Kakashi cocks his head to the side, observing Iruka with bored eyes. Iruka is sure he's going to keep arguing for the argument's sake when suddenly a crow's shrill cry rings through the air. He tenses up as bits and pieces of last night slip their way back into his memories.

He remembers the shadow of an animal and a crow's caw as he suddenly passes out and he stumbles back, away from the woods. Strong hands steady him and Iruka pauses for a second, unconsciously leaning into the touch before he jerks away from Kakashi, glaring.

"Don't touch me." He snaps, crossing his arms over his chest.

Kakashi shrugs. "Okay, I'll let you fall on your ass next time."

"Thank you," Iruka tells him sweetly, grinding his teeth to the point that he can almost  _ feel  _ them start turning to dust.

Kakashi turns away, obviously bored of him and this conversation, and begins walking away from Iruka towards the house, hands shoved in his pockets.

"I saw that animal last night," Iruka calls out, face drawn into a cross of a pout and a sneer. "I know something's out there, you're not as good as an actor as you think you are." His hands gravitate to his hips as he stares at Kakashi's retreating figure.

Kakashi stops in his tracks and Iruka gets a jolt of pleasure from being able to get under his skin. His grin sharpens as he waits patiently for Kakashi to turn around; he knows he will.

Sure enough, Kakashi turns around with the same air of leisure he always does, eyeing Iruka with exasperation. He brings up his hand and for a second Iruka thinks he's going to flip him off but Kakashi just slips two of his fingers under the bottom edge of his mask and lets out a shrill whistle from where his mouth had undoubtedly wrapped around his fingers. Iruka tries not to think about that too much as he eyes Kakashi, waiting to see what he would do next.

The dog he'd been playing with earlier runs towards Kakashi, slowing to a stop as he nears Kakashi's side. "This is Uhei." He looks down fondly at the dog before he looks back up at Iruka, expression shifting to something less than welcoming. "Or, your 'monster'. He got off his leash last night and was wandering around."

Iruka eyes the dog; it was big, he can admit that. It's head reached past Kakashi's waist when it sat down but the way the shadow had looked last night, it hadn't looked like a dog. Something else.

Iruka makes a face. "It's too small."

Kakashi's eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch before he slowly begins to speak. "Iruka...shadows aren't always an accurate representation of the actual being. Do I really need to explain Plato's allegory to you?" His amusement is mocking, and Iruka can see a cruel gleam in his eyes.

"They can't alter the shape of the object, though," Iruka mutters, eyeing the dog again. It's ears where a different shape, and so was its tail.

"Believe what you want." Kakashi sounds bored but Iruka can pick out the faintest traces of irritation stemming through his words. "If you want to believe that there's some weird magic force here, believe it!" Iruka's suddenly reminded of Naruto when he says the phrase. "If that's how you cope with leaving the exciting city life then that's  _ fine,  _ but stop throwing accusations at the rest of us, it sounds stupid and pathetic. If you need attention, join a club or something. Might I suggest the creative writing club? Your imagination certainly isn't lacking."

Iruka opens his mouth to retort, but slams it shut at the last second. What could he actually say? That the wind was too strong and that the animals were too loud and the town did an awful job at patching up potholes and scratches in schools? For all Iruka knew, maybe he  _ was  _ going crazy. His canine nibbles at his bottom lip and he lets out a small sigh, deflating. 

He trails Kakashi and Uhei back towards the house when something suddenly catches his eyes on the outer walls of the house. Gashes, just like the ones in the hallway at school.

"Let me guess, your dog made these too?" Iruka mutters under his breath, reaching out a hand and tracing the cuts in the wall. In front of him Kakashi's shoulders tense ever so slightly and his steps falter just a bit too much. Iruka grins triumphantly.  _ Checkmate. _

Kakashi turns around mechanically like there's a string attached to the center of his head that's controlling his movements. "What markings?" He asks flatly, eyes trained on Iruka a little too steady. Which meant he was consciously trying to keep his eyes from shifting, which meant he didn't want Iruka to think he was lying.

A sharp smile slips over Iruka's lips and he steps closer to Kakashi, tilting his head up so he can look him in the eyes better. "Don't worry Kakashi, I'll keep your secret." He croons, and a sudden flash of impulse flows through him and he reaches up and pats Kakashi lightly on the cheek.

He had expected Kakashi to shove him away. What he hadn't expected for Kakashi's eyes to go slightly unfocused and for him to lean into Iruka's touch. Then his eyes sharpen and he jerks away so fast that Iruka almost thinks he had imagined it.

"You're fucking delusional." Kakashi hisses, rubbing at his clothed cheek furiously, eyes narrowed into thin slits. His body is drawn into himself and he looks like he's mulling over either killing Iruka right then and there or running into his room and hiding there for the rest of the weekend. Uhei looks up at his owner, head cocked to the side.

Iruka just winks and saunters past him, running his fingers over the gashes as he walks by. He can feel Kakashi's gaze bore into his back and he resists the urge to turn around. Instead, he lets his phone slip out of the joggers front pocket and bends down to pick it up, giving Kakashi a full view of what he had to offer. 

When he finally stands up and glances back, Kakashi's deliberately looking off to the side but Iruka can see pink peeking out from underneath his mask and he grins

Kakashi lets out a noise that sounds suspiciously like a  _ growl  _ and storms past Iruka, shifting his body to avoid touching Iruka altogether. Uhei follows him obediently, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he trots quietly next to him. Iruka scowls and rolls his eyes.  _ Jerk. _

When Iruka gets back in the house Kakashi is nowhere to be seen and Genma is blindly stumbling over the couch as he walks out of the hallway, rubbing his eyes. His hair is an absolute disaster and the pajamas he had borrowed are too small so he's essentially wearing a crop top and booty shorts. Not for the first time, Iruka goodnaturedly mourns the fact that he's already in a relationship. 

Genma topples over the couch's arm and lands face first on the cushions and pats at the empty space around his legs. Iruka rolled his eyes and walks over and sits down, swinging his own legs on top of Genma, who lazily swats at them.

Obito soon walks out of his room, looking like a zombie, walking straight past them without acknowledging them and making his way to the bathroom where he leaves the door open and shoves his head under the sink, letting ice cold water run through his hair. He then snaps up, grin into place and snags a towel on his way out, toweling at his hair as he makes his way to the couch. 

"G'morning." He greets, pushing Genma over and sitting down on the couch.

"Good morning." Iruka nods slightly before going back to amusing himself with poking Genma's cheek.

"Stop it asshole! I'm gonna break out." Genma whines, slapping Iruka's fingers away and turning his face away from Iruka. He pauses and looks up at Obito. "Oh. When did you get here?"

"Good question." Obito flicks Genma's forehead, which elicits an indigent shriek from him.

"Obito I don't care if I'm in your house. I  _ will  _ gut you. Like a fish." His hand comes up and wiggles, imitating a fish swimming through water, before reaching up and smacking Obito right under his nose.

Obito wacks him over the head and Genma finally sits up, crawling over towards Obito with killing intent in his eyes. Obito obviously has some grey matter in his brain because he leaps off his side of the couch and cowers behind Iruka, peaking out with his good eye. "Iruka save me!" He howls as Genma crawls towards them, eyes narrowed.

Iruka takes one look at his clothing and bursts into laughter.   
  


When Kakashi comes into the living room an hour later, it was like they had never interacted in the first place; he didn’t even acknowledge Iruka’s presence. When he looked at Iruka, it was like he was looking through him and Iruka’s never wanted to stab someone as badly as he wanted to stab Kakashi. 

He ignores him right back, not wanting to give Kakashi the satisfaction of knowing just how much he got under his skin, so he just kept interacting with the others in the room, ignoring how his gaze kept slipping towards Kakashi’s icy eyes. When he finally goes home, his shoulders relax, letting go of tension that he didn’t know he was holding.

-

When he bursts through the door, the rest of his family is still eating breakfast.

Kushina looks up at him and smiles brightly. “Hey ‘Ruka! How was the sleepover?” She stands up and picks up a deep brown colored mug from the counter. “I made you tea.” 

He gratefully takes the warm mug into his hands and slides into his seat, tucking his legs under himself. “It was good.” He takes a sip of the tea, relishing the tangy taste. “Everyone was really nice.”  _ except Kakashi. _ He shakes his head lightly and turns to Naruto, who looked like he was moving based on muscle memory alone. “I met your friend. Sasuke Uchiha. He’s my friend’s cousin.”

Naruto’s eyes snap open and he sits up from where he was leaning against the table. “SASUKE?!” He knocks over his cup in the process, spilling the orange juice across the table. Minato reaches over and dabs it up with a handful of napkins, scolding Naruto lightly. Naruto accepts the scolding, nodding impatiently, before bombarding Iruka with questions.

“Isn’t he the best? Sakura thinks he’s  _ her  _ best friend but she doesn’t want to admit that she just likes Ino. Did you meet his big brother? He wouldn’t shut up about him. Also, did you know he likes tomatoes? They’re his  _ favorite.  _ Did he smile around you? He never smiles, but maybe if he was with his brother he’d smile. Do you think he’d come over if I asked him? Did he mention me? I gave him some of my ramen at lunch, which means we’re friends now so he’ll probably come over if I asked him. Mom, can Sasuke come over? He’s so cool, even if he’s dumb. He’s actually smart, but he’s  _ emotionally dumb,  _ believe it! He doesn’t know anything but that’s just cuz he hasn’t come over yet. Oh! We should invite Kiba too. I like Kiba, he has a dog. I think that if there’s three of here and a dog then we won’t get bored and we won’t bother Iruka-”

Iruka listens politely, sipping his tea as he waits for the rest of his family to finish breakfast. He had already eaten before he left Obito and Kakashi’s house, but he didn’t mind waiting for his family to finish eating. He likes spending time with them. 

Naruto forgets about trying to convince Kushina and Minato about inviting his entire class over for the time being and shovels the rest of his toast into his mouth and grabs Iruka’s tea out of his hands and takes a huge gulp, chasing it down. 

“Hey!” Iruka swipes his tea from Naruto’s small hands and glares at him. “Mine.”

Naruto shrugs with a grin. “I was all out of juice.”

“You spilled it.” Iruka reminds him mildly, looking down into the cup where soggy pieces of toast now swirl lazily in the tea. He wrinkles his nose and sets down the cup and shoves it back at Naruto. “I changed my mind, you can have it.”

“Heck yeah.” Naruto cheers, chugging it down. When he finishes, he slams the cup onto the table and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “It works every time.”

“Spitting food into my drinks?”

“Yeah! No sane person would drink that.” Naruto tells him cheekily.

“I offered to make you tea earlier.” Minato points out, placing his fork down on his empty plate. 

“Yeah but I don’t want my own tea, I want  _ Iruka’s  _ tea. It tastes better.” Naruto declares, shoving his plate further away from him. “Besides, I can’t drink an entire cup, that’s way too much. So I just take the little bit Iruka has left.” He hops off the table and runs off, hollering over his shoulder that he was going to the bathroom.

“You don’t have to finish it all in one go,” Iruka grumbles to himself, looking forlornly at his now empty mug. 

“There’s more in the teapot.” Kushina offers with a smile but Iruka shakes his head. 

“I’m good.” he pauses for a moment, before looking up at his parents hesitantly. “This...might seem kinda stupid but have you noticed anything weird about the woods around here?”

Kushina pauses, looking at Iruka with a thoughtful expression and Minato tilts his head and presses his lips together, teeth gnawing at his bottom lip. “I think,” he begins carefully, looking at Iruka, “That we should avoid going into the woods, especially alone.” He glances at his wife, who nods somberly. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but I think that it’s better to be safe than sorry.” He concludes softly, looking back at Iruka.

Iruka nods. “Yeah, you’re right.” He lets out a quiet sigh, letting his head fall back to rest against the chair. “Nice to know that I’m not going crazy.” he laughs humorlessly and Kushina frowns sympathetically at him, reaching out and smoothing out his hair.

“Trust me, I’d let you know if you’re going crazy.” She grins and he mirrors her expression.

“Takes one to know one.” He snips back and she laughs.

“And don’t you forget it.” She tugged lightly at his ponytail and stands up and begins picking up the dishes. Minato gets up and starts helping her, and Iruka decides that the conversation was over.

Pushing off the table, he quickly runs up to his room and changes into a fresh pair of clothes, tossing his old ones into the hamper and opens his closest and begins rummaging through it, looking for a pair of shoes that would match what he was wearing. He was halfway to Narnia by the time he finds what he’s looking for and he makes a mental note to clean out his closet. 

He stands up and eyes the closet with lazy irritation. He had finally unpacked and organized everything and now it was messy all over again. “Unbelievable,” he mutters to himself, before shutting the black barn style closet doors and dragging himself over to his twin bed and plopping onto the yellow covers, leaning over and slipping his feet into his shoes before lacing them up.

Just as he’s finishing up tying the laces he hears his door creak open and he looks up to see Naruto slip into his room. He’s dressed in a thick brown and orange winter coat, black joggers, and his favorite orange converse and he’s holding a basketball in his hands. “Do you want to play with me?” He demands, holding out the ball towards Iruka, eyes gleaming.

Iruka raises an eyebrow at his jacket. “It’s not that cold yet, Nart. You’ll be sweating through that in minutes. Let’s find a thinner jacket for you and then we can go out and I can kick your butt.”

Naruto tosses his head back and snorts, crossing his arms. “I’m gonna beat you this time, believe it.”

Iruka walks up to him and pinches his little nose between his middle and pointer fingers, laughing at Naruto’s indignant squawk. “Jacket first, butt kicking after.” he reminds him cheerily before herding Naruto out of his room and into his own room. 

And almost faceplants from tripping over one of the many objects strewn across Naruto’s floor. “Naruto!” Iruka snaps, glaring down at his little brother. “ _ Where _ is your floor?” 

Naruto squints his eyes, scanning the room thoughtfully before shrugging. “Dunno.” 

Rolling his eyes, Iruka trudges through the countless toys, shoes, and clothes covering up the floor and manages to make it to his closet without twisting an ankle. Grasping the handles, he throws open the closet and shuts his eyes tightly, bracing himself for the inevitable avalanche of clothing that was sure to fall out. 

After a few seconds of tense waiting, he peeks through one eyelid and looks at the almost bare closet. “Oh course,” he rolls his eyes. “I forgot. All your stuff is already on the floor.”

Naruto sticks his tongue out and puts up both of his hands into peace signs and Iruka snorts and plucks a light blue and black zip up hoodie off the hanger and tosses it at his brother. “Put this on instead.”

Naruto shimmies out of the snow coat, letting it drop to the floor around his feet and slips on the hoodie, leaving it unzipped and slings the orange and black JANSPORT backpack he always carries around over his shoulders. Iruka eyes the orange t shirt he’s wearing but just shakes his head and tells him to hand him his winter coat so he can hang it up.    
  


“Okay,” Naruto tells him, planting his hands on his hips with the basketball in the crook of his left arm. “I think we should just play HORSE. I don’t feel like keeping score right now, I do enough math during the week at school.”

“You just don’t want me to beat you again.” Iruka teases and Naruto bristles.

“NO! I  _ just  _ explained why I didn’t want to. I can beat you any day.” He yowls, dropping the ball to bring up both hands, gesturing wildly at Iruka. 

Iruka watches his angry germlin brother pop his top off for a few more seconds before picking up the basketball and throwing it one handed at the hoop with his left hand. It goes in smoothly, without touching the rim and Naruto glowers at him.

“No fair! You know I’m not left handed like you are!” Iruka is sure that if he waits a bit more there will be actual steam blowing out of Naruto’s nose and ears.

“Just take the shot. When it’s your turn you can use your right hand.”

“Don’t think I won’t,” Naruto mutters darkly before grasping the ball unsteadily in his left hand and tosses it towards the hoop with way too much momentum and the ball bounces off the rim and flies back into Naruto’s stomach. 

“H!” Iruka calls out helpfully from where he was standing.

Glaring at Iruka, he tosses the ball at him. “Use both hands this time.” He instructs him.

“I thought I was allowed to do whatever when it’s my turn, isn’t that how the game works?” Iruka shoots back, and Naruto turns his head away stubbornly. Rolling his eyes, Iruka backs up and throws the ball with both hands from about fifteen feet away. He makes it in and Naruto pulls at his hair in devastation.

“Iruka! I’m  _ short! _ I can’t make that from there!”

“I used both hands like you asked me to.” Iruka counters, not feeling very apologetic.

Muttering under his breath, Naruto stands where Iruka was standing and grips the basketball with both hands and squats down, eyeing the hoop with sharp eyes. He counts to seven and then he bounces up, putting all of his strength into his throw. The ball sails clear over the hoop and into the woods behind the house.”

“Great!” Naruto wails loudly. “Now I’m a HO.”

Iruka bites back a snort and pushes his glasses up his nose, looking for the ball. Naruto is way ahead of him and zips past him, making a beeline towards the woods. Iruka suddenly freezes, remembering what Minato and Kushina had told him.  _ Don’t go into the woods.  _ Naruto was very much in the woods and going even deeper.

“ _ Naruto! _ ” Iruka shrieks and runs after him, eyes glued to the tufts of golden hair reflecting the sun’s rays. “Naruto wait!”

Naruto looks back at him and scoffs, “Yeah right, that ball is signed by the Miami Heat. There’s no way I’m letting that ball out of my sight.” he increases his speed and Iruka lets out a frustrated yell and tears through the woods after him, trying to catch up to the kid.

Unfortunately for Iruka, Naruto was both very fast and  _ very  _ determined, with a lot of energy. The kid keeps going further into the forest and Iruka keeps chasing him, hyper aware of how the colors around them were getting darker and darker as they went further in and that the heavy weight of eyes was on his back. “ _ Naruto please!”  _ He gasps out, but Naruto just laughs loudly and puts another burst of speed in his step. 

The woods were dark, very, very dark and swallowed up any rays of sunlight that tried to get in. Naruto’s hair is the only thing that Iruka can see clearly, and his chest goes cold when he thinks about what would happen if he loses sight of Naruto. He doesn’t know how far they’ve run, but it feels like they’ve been running for hours. Based on how dark it was getting, they might have, but Iruka isn’t too sure. He’s quickly learning not to trust what he sees in these woods. 

_ How did this stupid fucking ball get so far into the woods? _

Suddenly, Naruto freezes and Iruka almost crashes into him. Actually, he does crash into him, but he manages to keep them both from toppling over. 

“Naruto!” he snaps loudly, standing in front of him and gripping the boy’s shoulders. “When are you going to start listening to people? Naruto?” he pauses his lecture when he realizes that Naruto is staring vacantly at something in front of him. Frowning, he turns around and looks back at what Naruto was looking at. 

There’s a wide river winding through the woods, cutting into the flesh of the earth and when Iruka inhales, he can smell the distinct scent of ash wafting from the river. Frowning, he creeps closer to it and he’s distantly aware that Naruto is trailing after him. From afar, the water appears black, but when he gets closer he can see the sun’s rays mixing with the thick water, making the water look almost red; like blood spreading over the floor. He tenses, but his body is moving without permission and he’s getting closer and closer until he’s hovering at the edge of the water, watching as the water’s color alternates between black and red as it twists down the curling river. 

His fingers reach out, mere inches from the surface of the water and he wonders when he had gotten down onto his knees. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see Naruto mirroring his position and he desperately tries to shake off whatever is keeping him in place, but it’s like his mind is sludge. He can barely get a single coherent thought through his head. 

His fingers are almost brushing the water and the smell of ash and soot gets stronger. His mind is screaming at him to get himself and Naruto away from the water, but he’s frozen in place. 

There’s a quiet yip behind them and they both fall back, away from the river, and look behind them to see what made the noise. 

A small red fox looks up at them, waving its tail lazily back and forth as it observes them calmly. Naruto immediately forgets what had just happened and bounces up and reaches his hand out towards the fox. “Cool! I’m adopting you!”

The fox lunges towards Naruto’s hand and before Iruka can shout out a warning... nuzzles Naruto's hand before starting to lick it. Naruto laughs and pats its head gently, before reaching into his backpack and pulling a stick of jerky out and offering it to the fox. The fox sniffs it a few times before jerking it out of his hand and scarfing it down. It then whines softly and nudges Naruto’s hand softly, asking for more.

“Naruto…” Iruka groans, “You’re not supposed to feed wildlife, you know that.”

“Just one more piece won’t hurt.” Naruto reasons, already digging through his backpack. The fox watches him with big eyes, tail thumping against the ground. 

“If you feed it, it’ll follow you.” Iruka warns, despite knowing that’s exactly what Naruto’s counting on. 

“Oh?” Naruto looks up innocently through thick eyelashes and Iruka throws his hands up in exasperation. 

“Naruto!”

“I like him!” Naruto defends, petting the fox again. “His name’s Kurama.”

“Great.” Iruka mutters sarcastically, “You named it.”

“Him.” Naruto corrects him immediately, and Kurama growls at Iruka, showing its teeth.

“Do-do you not see this?” Iruka sputters, eyes widening, "This is a feral animal. It’s hissing at me.”

Naruto pats the fox’s head and it immediately begins humming contentedly. “Kurama doesn’t like you,” he notes lightly and Iruka knows he’s  _ thrilled  _ that the fox only liked him.

“I don’t like him either,” Iruka grumbles, wrapping his arms around his knees and eyeing the fox wearily. It seemed nice enough, but Iruka doesn’t want to deal with explaining to his parents just how his brother got rabies from a wild fox.  _ So you see, we went for a jog through the woods to find Naruto’s NBA basketball and we met a fox and of course, Naruto decided to pet it. And feed it. And I let it happen because I had no idea what to do in that situation and now the fox bit off Naruto’s favorite finger and he’s crying and oh look he has rabies now. My bad.  _

Iruka cringes lightly and rolls his eyes up. His gaze brushes over the thick tree trunks and suddenly he freezes. There were thick gashes covering the trunks, identical to the ones in school and Kakashi’s house. 

“Naruto, we have to leave now.” Naruto looks like he’s going to argue but Iruka just hauls him up and begins tugging at him. “ _ Now.” _

“Why? Is Kurama that scary to you?” Naruto wonders as he digs his heels into the ground as Iruka tries to pull him forward.

“I-”

A cold wind suddenly blows through the air, erasing the scent of ash and replacing it with the scent of the ocean and a light, cheerful tune accompanies it. They both freeze and look around them, looking for the source of the noise. 

A girl with cropped brown hair makes her way towards them, humming the tune under her breath as she looks at them kindly, even from the distance. The thick woven basket she’s carrying is swinging back and forth against her knee length grey pleated skirt and the oversized light purple turtleneck she’s wearing keeps catching onto the handle of it. She doesn’t pay it any mind, just keeps humming as she makes her way towards them.

“You shouldn’t be out this far in the woods, Iruka.” She tells him in a smooth voice and Iruka frowns; he has no idea who this girl is. 

“We’re looking for my-”

“Basketball.” The girl finishes Naruto’s sentence for him and uncovers her basket and pulls out his ball from inside of it and places it in his hands. “You should take better care of your things, lots of things that get lost in these woods stay lost.” She tells them cryptically, before covering her basket back up. Before the cover is fully put on, Iruka sees a number of stones lined up in it and he raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on it, trying to think of something else to say.

“How did you know who I am?” He finally asks and she looks at him with an unnervingly blank, yet knowing, expression. “You’re Kakashi’s friend. The one who slept with him,” Iruka chokes on air and sputters, feeling his face begin to heat up.

“That. That’s not an answer.” he finally says and she just smiles kindly at him. 

“Yes, it is, just not the one you wanted.” She tells him cheerfully, before setting down her basket and adjusting the black leggings she has under her skirt, pulling them down lower and stuffing the ends back into her black boots. The fox rubs itself against her leg and she scratches it under its chin.

“Can you give me an answer I want then?” Iruka tries again, crossing his arms.

“I can.” She nods absently and picks her basket back up.

Iruka sighs. “But?”

“I don’t feel like it!” She cajoles, flexing one of her wrists as she fixes him with a bright smile.

“...Right. Thanks.” He finally mutters, tugging down the sleeves of his bomber jacket.

“Of course!” She looks up at the sky. “It’s going to rain soon, you should go home soon. Bye Iruka, Bye Naruto. It was nice to meet you!” She starts humming again and walks past them, ignoring Naruto’s shouting. The fox scampers after her.

“HEY LADY! HOW’D YOU KNOW  _ MY  _ NAME? HEY! I’M TALKING TO YOU-” Iruka grabs his collar as he tries to run after her.

“Just ignore her, we really do need to be getting back,” Iruka tells him and Naruto scowls up at him, narrowing his eyes into slits.

“That’s lame.” He tells him, but Iruka just rolls his eyes. 

“At least you got your ball back.” He grabs it from Naruto’s grasp and shoves it in his backpack. “So you don’t drop it by accident and lose it again.” He explains when Naruto tilts his head at him with a frown and an eyebrow raise. 

“Okay.” Naruto shrugs and takes off in one direction. “We came from this way!”

Iruka can’t remember where they had come from, so he just follows after Naruto, hoping for the best. “You look like a turtle with that ball in your bag!” He hollers after his little brother and he gets a laugh in response. 

They walk for a good thirty minutes before Iruka and Naruto look at each other and agree that they’re lost and have no idea where they were. 

“We should have asked that girl which way to go.” Iruka laments, glaring up at a tree branch that had just smacked him in the face.

“She’d just laugh and say she didn’t feel like telling us.” Naruto scoffs, munching on a piece of jerky. He soundlessly passes another piece to Iruka, who grabs it and bites into it, fuming. 

“Okay so then we could have just followed her! If she knew who we are and she knew Kakashi, she probably lives somewhere around us.”

Naruto pats his leg comfortingly. “It’s okay, ‘Ruka. She’d probably lose us somehow and we’d be even more lost.”

Iruka takes another bite out of the jerky and mutters some choice words under his breath, hoping Naruto doesn’t hear him.

“Iruka, watch your fucking language.” Iruka’s neck snaps up as he looks at Naruto, horrified. Naruto looks back at him blankly, lifting up the jerky and biting into it.

“ _ Where  _ did you learn that?” He demands and Naruto shrugs.

“Kiba said it’d be a funny thing to say.” He explains around the jerky in his mouth and Iruka huffs out a laugh against his better judgment. 

“Okay, I’ll let it slide this time.” He stands up and brushes off his pants and Naruto follows in suit.

“I’ll let it slide too.” He tells Iruka somberly and Iruka bites his lip to keep from laughing outright. Naruto grins toothily at him before pausing and looking to his left before taking off in that direction screaming “WE’RE SAVED!” at the top of his lungs.

“Not again.” Iruka almost sobs and scampers after him, wondering just  _ how  _ he ended up in this particular situation. This wasn’t fair; he was going to sit and do  _ nothing  _ all day, not end up running through the woods and meeting weird girls who didn’t give straight answers.

Naruto bursts out of the forest’s edge and Iruka follows soon after, only to freeze in his tracks for the fiftieth time today. In front of them was an empty field that stretches for miles, filled with thin dry grass that waved weakly in the breeze. There was a scarecrow a few yards ahead and Naruto quickly makes his way towards it, stopping right in front of it.

Iruka takes his time walking through the field, feeling the thin blades of grass crumple underneath his footsteps as he makes his way through the tall, yellow stalks of grass. They go up to his midthighs and he lets his fingertips run over the tops of the plants as he walks by, feeling the dry grass lightly chafe at his skin.

He can barely see Naruto through the tall grass and he picks up his pace a bit, not wanting to lose him here. Thankfully, Naruto is still staring up at the old scarecrow with stars in his eyes as he takes in its appearance. 

“Look at these, Iruka.” Naruto points at three thick gashes in the scarecrows chest. “They look just like the gashes on the trees in the woods.”

Iruka glances up sharply at the scarecrow and feels both panicked and relieved; at least now he knows he’s not the only person who can see them. The scarecrows disfigured grin leers at them and Iruka begins to fidget, feeling a drop in the temperature. He looks up at the sky; maybe it  _ will _ rain. 

A low croak grabs his attention, and he realizes with a start that a group of crows had begun to circle them, flying just out of reach.  _ Oh absolutely Not.  _

“Okay, Naruto. I think we’ve been out long enough, we really need to get home.” He grabs at Naruto’s hand, but Naruto jerks it out of his grasp and turns back to the scarecrow. 

“Wait, I wanna touch it.”

“Naruto…” Iruka starts but Naruto isn’t having it. 

“Just one poke! What’s the worst thing that’ll happen? Some straw will fall out or something.” He then reaches out and pasues, looking back at Iruka with a glint in his eyes. He backs up a bit, runs, jumps, and then kicks the scarecrow firmly in the chest before bouncing back and grinning triumphantly. “See? Nothing-”

The scarecrow shudders and a thick red liquid spurts out of the place Naruto hit it, right over one of the gashes, and spills over onto the ground around it. Naruto jumps out of the blast zone and gapes at the bleeding scarecrow, face pale and eyes wide as he looks at the blood dripping out of it.

The crows crow loudly and Iruka pauses, eyes focusing on the slow dripping.

Blood.

Scooping up Naruto, Iruka bolts across the field as fast as his legs can carry him, ignoring how his glasses were slipping down his face and his legs began to protest. He can hear the crows flying behind them, screaming, and he runs even faster. He just keeps running and running until they’re across the field and standing in front of an old road that’s covered in thin cracks and gaping potholes. The crows circle above them and Iruka steps off of the field and into the road. The crows stay over the filed, shrieking angrily at them, boreing their beady black eyes into them. 

The sky rumbles and a thin sheen of rain begins dripping down from the sky, covering Iruka and Naruto in a thin layer of water. The rainclouds quickly blot out any remaining sunshine and the colors around them slowly fade to grey as the rain increases and the fog thickens. 

Naruto begins to shiver and Iruka takes off his backpack and puts it on his own back and then brings his brother closer to his chest, trying to share his body heat with him as much as possible. Not that he had a lot to give, but it was better than nothing.

The fog gets even thicker and soon Iruka can barely see in front of him. Gripping Naruto tighter, he begins to walk in a direction that he hopes is right. If it isn’t, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. 

Naruto soon comes to his senses and squirms out of Iruka’s grasp, insisting that he can walk by himself and that he was only holding Iruka’s hand to make sure he doesn’t get lost. They keep walking and Iruka’s just about to accept that they’re genuinely lost to the point that they’d have to call 911 to get home when suddenly he hears a familiar yip and spots a red blur trotting towards them.

Iruka bites back a groan. “You have to be kidding me.”

Kurama the fox runs up to them, rubbing itself against Naruto’s leg and nipping his pants lightly, tugging in one direction. Naruto squats down and looks the fox in the eye. “What’s that, Kurama? You want us to follow you?” He asks him earnestly, eyes wide. Kurama yips and pulls at his pants and Naruto stands up.

“We are  _ not  _ following a fox home,” Iruka warns, moving to grab Naruto’s collar so that he won’t run off, but Naruto anticipates his movement and dodges him and begins running in the direction Kurama had been pulling and Kurama takes off after him, keeping pace with him.

“YOU BETTER HURRY IF YOU DON’T WANNA BE LEFT BEHIND, ‘RUKA!” Naruto whoops over the wind and thunder and Iruka lets out a desperate scream and runs after his brother, cursing everyone and everything for giving him such a gullible and hyperactive little brother. 

He sprints after Naruto, keeping a close eye on the tufts of blond hair and bright orange shoes as he catches up to him, gripping at the straps of Naruto’s backpack.

_ This is the last time I carry something for him. period.  _

The fox scampers back into the woods and before Iruka can have time to complain, Naruto dives in after him, leaving Iruka to make one of two choices; stop and leave his little brother to the mercy of a fox, or running after them. Growling through his teeth, he follows them through the woods.

They run through bushes, dodge rocks, climb over roots and get hit in the face with just about every type of tree that was native to this part of the world. Throughout it all, Naruto is laughing and cheering and Iruka can feel himself calming down enough to be able to enjoy the sensation of just  _ running.  _

The rain had slowed to a lazy drizzle and the fog had cleared up a bit and Iruka is able to appreciate just how beautiful the forests here really were. The thick roots were covered in bright green moss and lichen, the trees were all twisted into lovely shapes, and the leaves were like bright gemstones, all glistening from the rain. 

Naruto looks back at him with an overjoyed smile and holds out his hand and Iruka takes it and lets Naruto drag him even deeper through the woods, chasing after a small red fox.

Someone laughs, and Iruka realizes it’s him and he lets his head fall back, watching the world flash by him as he continues to run through the woods, fingers tightly laced with Naruto’s. They keep running and running and running until all Iruka can think is  _ running  _ and some part of him assumes that they’d just never stop; and he doesn’t necessarily mind that. 

But then they’re reaching the end of the forest and they can see their house down the road and Iruka lets out a shaky laugh as Naruto lets go of his hand to pump his fist and scream joyfully before spinning in circles. He grabs Iruka’s hands again and tugs and soon they’re both spinning around each other, laughing loudly. The fox jumps up and down excitedly, looking from one to the other. 

They finally calm down and Iruka takes off Naruto’s backpack and digs out a piece of jerky and hands it to Kurama. Kurama approaches him hesitantly and he squats down, holding it out for him. The fox sniffs it hesitantly before snatching it from his hand and scarfing it down. 

Laughing quietly, Iruka reaches out slowly and strokes the fox’s head. It tenses for a moment, before relaxing and Iruka keeps petting it.

“Hey! Don’t steal my friend from me!” Naruto grumbles goodnaturedly, petting Kurama’s back. 

“We can share.”

Naruto pauses, opening his mouth to argue before smiling brightly. “We can.”

Iruka stands up and stretches, and helps Naruto up as well. “We  _ really  _ have to get home now.”

Naruto nods enthusiastically. “I’m starving! Hopefully, we have ramen!” They walk out of the forest, half expecting Kurama to follow them but the moment they walk out of the forest the fox shies away, refusing to exit the woods, even when Naruto tries to coax it with jerky. 

A low howl fills the air, echoing through the woods and the fox suddenly perks up and runs into the woods, disappearing from view.

Naruto and Iruka exchange glances and shrug and begin walking towards their house. Halfway here they both turn back and look at the woods, where a pair of eyes much larger than the fox’s are watching them. They blink twice and disappear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i said short chapters?don't know her.


	5. five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHHHHHH IM SORRY THIS IS SO LATE. CLASSES AND FINALS KILLED ME . BUT I PASSED . SO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
i hope everyone's having a great holiday season uwu  
also this isnt edited oop

Cool air caresses his bare cheeks as he steps out of the car, tugging at the black turtleneck that's poking out of his lime green hoodie. His hand that moves to push his glasses pauses halfway as he remembers that he has his contacts in and grins toothily as he turns around to shut the door. 

Finally,  _ freedom. _ No more awkwardly pushing his glasses up his nose to keep them from sliding down his face and no more worrying about them falling off while he was out doing things with his friends.

He lets the breeze push him gently forward towards the school, mulling over what had happened over the weekend when he and Naruto were in the woods. They hadn't mentioned anything to their parents since they had specifically told them to stay out of the forest, so they didn't have anyone to talk to it about. Naruto could maybe get away with telling people, but if he mentioned it he'd probably be taken to a psychiatrist faster than he could blink.

"Iruka! Get to class!" One of the teachers standing outside her door tells him as he enters the school, pointing to her digital watch. "You're late." 

"Sorry." He ducks his head sheepishly, reaching up once again to push his non-existent glasses up his nose. "I'm going."

"Yeah, it's not like you have anything better to do." She teases and twirls her index and middle fingers in a "hurry up" gesture. He grabs the straps on his backpack a little bit tighter and increases his speed just enough to show the teacher that he was doing what he was told. Based on her snort, she probably sees right through his act but can't be bothered to chastise him. He hears quiet footsteps shuffling away and then the sound of a door squeaking and turns around to an empty hallway.

The hallways harsh fluorescent lights flicker and he frowns and puts a little more speed in his steps, trying not to think about glowing eyes and shrieking crows. The atmosphere seems to drop a few degrees as the lights flicker once again before shutting off entirely and he nervously shifts his eyes around, trying to see if anyone would come out to address the problem. The hallway stays silent. 

A shiver runs down his spine as he feels a pair of eyes on him and he clamps his front teeth down on his bottom lip and keeps looking straight ahead. If there was something behind him, he wasn't sure he wanted to see what it was. Which in hindsight, probably wasn't the smartest thing he could do at the moment but he was currently blanking out. 

_ 'Maybe my death will make it onto BuzzFeed Unsolved'  _ he thinks to himself and is almost able to crack a smile before a low howl reverberates through the hallway and his entire body freezes up mid step, refusing to move. His heart is hammering in his chest a mile a minute but his limbs feel like they're made of iron, no matter how hard he tries, he can't move. Pressure rises in his chest and his lungs strain, the beat of his chest echoing throughout his body but he's stuck in place, shoulders trembling as he waits for whatever is out there to come and get him. 

He feels a presence creep up behind him and he feels a sharp drop in his stomach. As he opens his mouth to scream, a hand clamps over his mouth and another jerks him sideways, into a small custodial closet.

He bites at the hand covering his mouth and he hears a quiet yelp, and feels someone press against him and pinch his side in retaliation as they rummage through the dark closest, looking for something. Finally, a dim light flickers on and suddenly Iruka's staring right into Kakashi Hatake's face. Or as much of it as he can see with the black medical mask obscuring the bottom half of his face from view. 

"What the, and I say this in the nicest way possible, fuck is  _ wrong _ with you. No! I take it back. I mean it in the  _ rudest _ way possible. What the hell? You can't just go around grabbing people and pulling them into janitorial closets! This isn't High School Musical." Iruka hisses through his teeth trying to shove the taller boy away from him.

"You  _ bit _ me." Kakashi shoots back, somewhat incredulously, wiping his right hand on Iruka's hoodie. "That's absolutely disgusting. What the hell is wrong with you? What if I had touched something gross with my hands? Now it'd be all over your mouth. Lucky for you, I have excellent manners and wash my hands but what if I was Obito? You'd probably be infected by some undiscovered disease right about now." He's still rubbing whatever was left of Iruka's saliva onto Iruka's hoodie and Iruka slaps his hand back. "Don't hit me! I'm not the one going around licking random men. Do you have Mono? You better not. If I get sick tomorrow I'm suing you."

"Kakashi," Iruka growls through his teeth, looking up at him. " _ What  _ are we doing in here?"

"Don't change the subject, you do have a fucking viral infection that I can get or not? I can't believe you, man. This could be a matter of life or death for me and you're asking about why we're in a closet? What the hell?" 

"You can't die from Mono, dumbass." Iruka grits his teeth and tries to push past Kakashi but he's held firmly in place.

"So you  _ do  _ have it." Kakashi crows and Iruka can feel himself grinding his teeth to dust. He had an English packet due this period and if he didn't turn it in he'd have four Fs in the gradebook, something that was far more deadly than Mono, thank you very much.

"I don't have time to argue with you, I have homework that's due." He snaps and kicks at Kakashi's shins, trying to get him to loosen his hold on him so he can slip through and get out to safety away from this fucking maniac. Unfortunately for him, all he manages to do is make Kakashi fall forwards, planting his face right into the crook of his neck. 

He feels Kakashi inhale, stiffen, and exhale before pulling away just enough so that they're barely touching. "You went into the woods." He accuses, sounding absolutely betrayed. "And followed a  _ fox  _ home? Do you know how fucking stupid that is? Iruka look at me. I need you to know how absofuckinglutely idiotic that is. Do you understand?" Iruka would have played off his reaction as a joke but Kakashi's eyes are so wide and so desperate that he can't help but laugh nervously and try to back away.

"Listen when you're desperate you're- wait. How did you know that happened?" His eyes narrow and he looks back up at Kakashi, who just shrugs nonchalantly.

"Rin told me."

"Eh?"

"Rin. Brown hair, about this high? Probably had a basket with her?"

" _ Rin.. _ right. Her. She kinda neglected introducing herself."

Kakashi laughs softly and shakes his head. The tips of his hair brush Iruka's forehead as he moves from left to right and Iruka can't help but notice that his eyelashes are the same pale color as his hair, thick white strands framing closed mismatched eyes. His eyebrows are the same color too, not a shade lighter like he thought they'd be. The thin scar bisecting his eyebrow and face crinkles ever so slightly when he's smiling, and Iruka's hit with the realization that he's never seen Kakashi's smile before, which is sad. He's sure Kakashi has a nice smile. 

Then Kakashi's eyes open back up and Iruka suddenly notices just how close their faces are and suddenly his entire body stiffens and he feels his face start to heat up. He tries to get his blushing under control by biting down on his bottom lip but he feels even more blood rush upwards and all he can do is hope and pray that Kakashi doesn't notice that there's anything off about him.

But unfortunately for him, Kakashi's lazy, unbothered expression immediately morphs into something far sharper as his eyes steadily examine Iruka's face, head tilting to the side ever so slightly as he leans a fraction of an inch closer, observing how Iruka scrunches up his eyes and squirms. Iruka can see him examining and calculating his reactions and he suddenly needs to be anywhere but there.

"Okay... I'm going to leave now." His voice comes out softer than he'd like but he just straightens out his shoulders and very purposely doesn't look at how the peach colored sweater with a black painting of the Eiffel tower on it looks very nice on his frame, or how his pale hands are covered in thin silver rings that sit on different heights on each finger, or how his tight black jeans are ripped without anything underneath them, despite the cool weather that has Iruka putting tights underneath his own washed out ripped mom jeans.

He pushes past Kakashi, but he feels him wrap his fingers around his wrist. "That. Isn't the best idea you could have right now." He warns but Iruka just shrugs him off and swings the door open and comes face to face with a pair of red eyes that are focused directly on him. 

A hulking wolf is making its way towards him, glitching in and out of view. Wispy strands of grey and white surround it, weaving around it's semitangeble body as it stalks towards Iruka, eyes narrowed. 

"Ah... Kakashi?" He takes a step back just as the spirit breaks into a run and Kakashi takes a step forward, moving with carefully calculated steps. It lunges for Iruka just as Kakashi jumps in the way and Iruka screws his eyes shut, waiting for screaming and the sensation of hot blood pooling around him but all he feels is an odd sensation of vertigo before he hits the ground seconds before what he hopes is a still alive Kakashi falls on top of him.

He slits his eyes open and is met with  _ gold.  _ Everywhere he looks, tall golden stalks of dried grass wave proudly above him in the gentle breeze. The sunlight is bright and harsh, reflecting cruelly on every surface it touches and Iruka brings one hand up to shield his face, brushing the dangling gold earring that's hanging from his right ear. 

Remembering he put on earrings this morning, he touches both ears and sighs in relief when they're all accounted for. On his right side, one dangling earring and two small studs, and on his left three studs as well as the cartilage piercing. 

There's a low rumble and suddenly dark clouds crawl over the sun, hiding it and every bit of light from view. Iruka lets out a low groan and lets his head fall back against the wooden post he was leaned against when he landed. Why was it always rain?

The thunder rolls again and suddenly the weight in his lap shifts and Iruka's hit with a sudden realization;  _ Kakashi. _

Grabbing his face in both his hands, he frantically slaps at his covered cheeks, repeating a whispered mantra of  _ please wake up please wake up please wake up ple _ over and over again. The last thing he wanted to do was drag an unconscious body through a field while looking for shelter from the rain. How would he explain  _ that  _ to anyone who just happens to pass by? 

He's reaching out to flick Kakashi's nose when Kakashi's eyes snap open and his hand comes up and grabs Iruka's wrist inches from his face. "First you bite me and now you're trying to flick me? When will the abuse end?" He asks and Iruka can tell he's smiling based on how his eyes curve up and how scar bunches up. 

"Well, I didn't want to have to drag your unconscious body across the field." Iruka reasons innocently and Kakashi's eyes sharpen and he sits up and looks around. 

Iruka watches Kakashi's eyes widen with shock as he looks around, staring at the thick stalks of grass as he reaches out and snaps one of the stalks between his fingers and lets the grass get blown out of his hands by the strengthening wind. They both watch the browning bits of grass swirl around in the breeze until it is out of view and then Kakashi turns towards Iruka and jumps back with a curse, pointing behind him, at the post Iruka was still leaning against.

Suddenly a cold feeling crawls up his spine and Iruka suddenly has a pretty good idea what he's leaning on before he even turns around. He eyes the ground where he was sitting and sure enough, it was coated in a dark brownish red substance and he has to dig his nails into his hands to keep from crying outright.

He turns ever so slowly, before looking up at the grinning scarecrow from before, complete with the gashes, dried blood and all. He looks up at its empty eyes and lets out a loud yelp and scrambles backward. "Oh hell no! Not again." 

Kakashi pins him with an unhappy look. "Again?"

"Yeah." Iruka keeps backing up, going even further back than Kakashi and continuing on. "Naruto, that's my little brother, and I got lost in the woods and we ended up here. Naruto wanted to touch it so he, uh, kicked it and the thing spurted fucking  _ blood."  _

"Didn't I tell you to stay out of the woods?" Kakashi accuses and Iruka rolls his eyes. 

"I'm literally under no obligation to listen to you, your majesty."

"And now you keep getting stalked by weird supernatural beings," Kakashi mutters under his breath and Iruka jumps up and points at him.

" _ HA!  _ So you  _ admit  _ it."

"Admit what?'

"Don't play dumb with me, buddy boy." Iruka grabs Kakashi's hand and drags him away from the scarecrow. "You know what you said. And better yet,  _ I  _ know." 

"You're really annoying, you know that?" Kakashi lets himself be pulled up and he brushes off the back of his pants, dusting off bits of crushed grass. He looks up at the darkening sky and reaches up and rubs at his left eye, wincing at some pain that Iruka can't touch but still feels bad for.

"I'm well aware." He tells him cheekily, but he can barely keep the concern out of his voice. He didn't know what that wolf had done to him, but he was favoring his right side and he kept rubbing at his left eye. He moves to Kakashi's right side as nonchalantly as he can manage, hoping that Kakashi doesn't notice that he's doing it for fear that Kakashi will topple over or something. 

There's a loud clap of thunder and the flash of lightning that follows shortly after brings to light just how dark it had gotten in a short amount of time. Kakashi's white hair was just about the only thing he could see with ease, the rest of the world seemed to have melded away into the shadows and Iruka can't help but edge slightly closer to him. 

"We should go," Kakashi tells him flatly and Iruka nods mutely. Kakashi pauses and then shakes his head. "I'm gonna assume that you nodded your head. Wasn't looking, but hopefully, you're not crazy and you're aware that we need to leave."

"Of course I agreed with you moron, why would I disagree?" He snaps, before asking him what he was looking at.

"Upset that I wasn't staring at you?" He jokes lightly and Iruka's glad that the darkness covered up his blush.

"Be serious." He pokes Kakashi's side and the other laughs before grabbing at his side with a wince and pointing to the sky with the other hand. 

Iruka follows his gesture and spots a group of crows flying lazily in a circle above them and feels tears start to form in his eyes. "Anything but the crows.."

"Let's go," Kakashi mutters again, this time with more urgency and Iruka doesn't even bother to nod, just hooks his arm around Kakashi's and marches off in whatever direction was in front of them. The crows scream angrily and dive towards them and Iruka lets out a yelp and picks up Kakashi, throws him over his shoulder and takes off as fast as he can.

"Let go of me!" Kakashi demands in the most undignified tone Iruka's ever heard but he doesn't have time to stroke Kakashi's ego. Right now they were about to become crow food if they didn't take off right away and with the way Kakashi had been moving before, Iruka doesn't think he'd be able to run very far, or even at all.

Iruka keeps running, ignoring Kakashi's screaming and complaining and focuses on getting to the road. The crows never followed him onto the road. Or at least they haven't before. They could be planning an elaborate trap by tricking him into  _ thinking  _ he was safe on the road before tearing him to shreds, but he doesn't have time to worry about that now. He'd say that crows weren't smart enough to do that, but he'd seen enough things that would say otherwise so he's reduced to hoping and praying that they followed stupid rules that make no sense, like being unable to kill people when they're on the road.

The road comes into view and Iuka almost _ cries  _ because Kakashi's a lot heavier than Naruto is and his shoulders are killing him and his lungs are screaming and his legs just died about fifty feet back. He stumbles onto the road and dumps Kakashi onto the ground and slumps down next to him, heaving loudly. Next to him Kakashi is muttering death threats under his breath and squirming as he moves to sit up. He slaps away Iruka's hand with glare when Iruka tries to help him up.

The crows scream again, but stay right over the field, staring at the two of them with beady black eyes. Iruka's hit with a strong sense of deja vu and he decides that it's the worst feeling in the world.

There's a soft crunching of leaves behind them and he turns to see the wolf from before step out of the woods. Its eyes are black, but as a thundercloud shifts away from the sun for a second and the light shines through, its eyes flash back to bright red.

Iruka scrambles backward and pulls Kakashi with him before Kakashi pulls away and uses his own limbs to back away from the animal. They both stand up and back away from it before it suddenly tenses and crouches ready to pounce again.

It lets out a throaty growl and Iruka tenses his legs, ready to run, but Kakashi suddenly grabs his wrist and squeezes, brushing his fingers over the soft skin on his inner wrist and Iruka looks up at Kakashi in confusion, eyes wide. Kakashi’s eyes curve upwards as he reaches up and pats Iruka’s cheek with his other hand before stepping in front of him and lowers his mouth and  _ growls  _ back at the wolf.

At this point, Iruka's brain freezes over and all he can do is think hysterically about how he's going to die with a fucking psychopath of a classmate and digs his hands into his scalp and pulls at his hair, dislodging his ponytail in the process. 

_ 'He's crazy. He's actually fucking crazy. Oh god. Oh god. I wonder if the wolf will still wanna eat me if he eats Kakashi first. Oh my god. What if he kills him and just leaves and  _ ** _I_ ** _ get charged with manslaughter? Oh my god why doesn't this bullshit happen to someone else oh my-'  _ his train of thought freezes when he sees the wolf dip it's head in submission and just turns around and trots back towards the woods where it disappears from view. 

" _ Excuse me?"  _ The words leave his mouth before he even realizes he's said them and Kakashi pulls up his mask and turns back around to look at Iruka with what was probably supposed to be a sheepish expression. "What the fuck was that?"

"I work with dogs a lot."

"You work with dogs." Iruka's eyebrows climb upwards towards his hairline.

"I have a lot of dogs."

"A lot of dogs you say?" He can feel the vein in his forehead begin to pulse as he waits for Kakashi's response.

"Eight of them." He deadpans and Iruka wants nothing more than to punch him in his stupid fucking face.

"..." Iruka stares at him, silently counting to thirty before finally opening his mouth. 

"Okay so when I say this, I absolutely do mean to offend you, but I have a hyperactive eight year old brother. I have heard  _ every  _ fucking ridiculous excuse out there come out of his mouth but even _ he  _ has not managed to top you in terms of utter bullshit. I am not trying to be nice in the slightest. I will kill you. I will."

"It's true!" Kakashi protests. "Here I'll show you." He pulls out his phone and opens his gallery and shows him a picture of eight dogs laying around him and Iruka suddenly understands all those times his mother absolutely lost her shit over their stupid excuses.

"I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT YOUR FUCKING DOGS MORON, I'M TALKING ABOUT HOW YOU FUCKING _ GROWLED  _ AT A WOLF AND IT TURNED TAIL AND RAN." He screams at the top of his lungs and Kakashi doesn't even have the common sense to at least  _ act _ embarrassed.

"It's cuz I work with dogs so much." He insists and Iruka throws his hands up in the air.

"Are you  _ insane?  _ You can't actually believe that." He asks incredulously, on the verge of some emotion that he wasn't sure he could properly name. 

"Iruka…" he grabs his wrist and pulls him close and Iruka can feel his brain short-circuit. If it was from their close proximity or his absolute loss for words at their current situation, Iruka's not sure but he's stuck staring at Kakashi's ridiculously big mismatched eyes. 

Iruka feels a familiar tapping on his wrist and he's hit with a sinking feeling in his chest and he glances down at his wrist and back up at Kakashi's face.

"I'm sorry Iruka...I really don't want to do this, but this is for your own safety." He tells him softly and reaches up with his free hand and gently taps Iruka's forehead with his index finger and suddenly Iruka's eyes are dropping closed and he feels himself falling forward into Kakashi's waiting arms.

"...Iruka? IRUKA!" his eyes snap open and he looks over at Genma who's been saying his name for the past ten minutes. "Tsunade's gonna get mad at you if she catches you sleeping in class. And she's already pissed off enough to give us  _ all  _ another project." He warns him, and Iruka shakes himself awake.

“My bad.” He rubs at his eyes before looking up and blinking twice. “I just had the weirdest dream.”

Genma hums noncommittally. “Yeah? What was it about?”

Iruka frowns, eyebrows creasing in concentration as he racks his memory, but comes up mostly empty handed. “I can’t remember. It was so vivid but I can’t remember a  _ thing. _ ”

“Raidou can never remember a thing from his dreams.” Genma offers and Iruka frowns, reaching to push a strand of hair out of his face, and pauses in confusion. His hair had been pulled back perfectly last he could remember, and he was sure no one else had touched it.

“Genma? This is kind of a weird question but do you know what happened to my hair?” He points to the pulled out strands and Genma looks back up from his notes and shakes his head slowly, face perfectly blank. Iruka shrugs and tucks the strands behind his ear and turns back around to face the front where Tsunade was lecturing about Roman Architecture. 

He scans the room lazily, before noticing that the desk next to his was strangely empty. He looks around the room in confusion; Kakashi was usually late to class but he was never this late to class, and he never missed a class. 

“Obito!” He whispers, trying to get the attention of the kid in front of him. When he doesn’t turn around, Iruka leans over and peers at him and finds him asleep, drooling onto the hand that his head is propped against and pokes him with his pen. “Obito!”

The boy jerks awake, flailing ever so slightly as he gathered himself together. “Wha?” He asks groggily, rubbing at his eyes.

“Where’s Kakashi?”

“Kakashi?” Obito frowns, blinking twice as he tries to get his brain back online.

“Your brother?” Iruka prompts and Obito’s face lights up.

“ _ Oh!  _ He wasn’t feeling too well so he stayed home today.” He explains, waving his orange lead pencil around as he speaks. 

Iruka thanks him for his answer and sits back into his chair, tapping the desk absently with his ballpoint pen, looking outside the window and wondering when it had gotten so sunny.

Iruka pulls his hoodie closer around his body and mentally curses himself for not bringing a thicker jacket. Both his parents had to stay at work late and all his friends with cars left before him because he had to go talk to his advisor after sixth period, so he was stuck walking home through the woods. He’d take the main road but that was an hour and a half walk while it was a thirty minute walk through the woods and he wasn’t about to spend almost two hours in the freezing cold, so he had decided that if he could survive a whole day in the woods with Naruto earlier this week, he could survive thirty minutes by himself.

He’s about fifteen minutes away from his house when he sees a familiar shock of white hair up ahead and immediately lifts his arm up and waves at him, grinning so widely that his chapped lips feel like they’re going to split. The figure freezes as they notice him waving, before making their way over to him, offering a slow wave in return.

It’s only as Kakashi nears him that Iruka stops to wonder why he’s so excited to see Kakashi. They weren’t particularly close friends and last time they interacted, they had gotten mad at each other. 

Kakashi stops in front of him, wearing a strangely familiar peach colored sweater and a pair of black ripped jeans that has Iruka wondering how the hell he isn’t cold. He’s holding a black leash in his left hand and Uhei yips excitedly at Iruka and strains against the leash to nuzzle against Iruka. 

“Hi, Uhei!” Iruka coos, scratching at the dog's soft fur, laughing as the dog licks at his hand before looking up and greeting Kakashi.

“Iruka.” Kakashi holds two fingers up in greeting before asking without any preamble, “What are you doing in the woods alone?”

“Walking home.” Iruka gestures around vaguely. “No car.”

“You couldn’t get someone to take you home?”

Iruka shrugs. “Not today.”

“Hn.” Kakashi hums and turns around so he’s facing the direction that Iruka was headed in. “I’ll walk home with you.” 

Iruka’s eyes widen at the offer, but grins brightly and thanks him as they both continue to walk on through the woods.

As they’re walking, Iruka notices that Kakashi is limping slightly on his right side, using Uhei to help keep him upright and his eyes narrow. 

“Kakashi?”

“Hm?”

“What happened to your leg?”

There’s a moment of silence, and for a second Iruka thinks he just won’t answer but then he hears a quiet laugh. “Maa, Iruka, you’re worried about me? I’m touched. No need to worry though, my leg just sometimes aches from the accident that Obito and I had as kids. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.” He promises, and Iruka nods, reaching up to tighten his ponytail.

“Why do you always keep your hair up?” Iruka looks up at Kakashi, who’s watching him with interest, hands shoved in his pockets to keep from fidgeting.

Iruka shrugs slowly as he tries to come up with a good answer. “I’m not really sure, this is what I’ve always done, and I don’t really have any reason to change it.” There’s more to it, but Iruka doesn’t feel like spilling his guts out to someone he’s not that close to. Kakashi seems to understand that and he nods, seemingly satisfied with the answer.

“You took your glasses off.” He comments again after a stretch of silence and Iruka lets out a laugh as he reaches up and runs a hand over his scar.

“Yeah, they’re a bother, contacts are much more practical.”

“Makes sense.” Kakashi agrees, reaching down to pet Uhei and Iruka’s eyes are drawn to the shiny metal that glints off his fingers.

“I like your rings.” He offers and Kakashi’s hand slows for a moment before continuing to pet his dog. 

“Thank you, they were my mother's.”

“They’re beautiful.” Iruka smiles softly and he can’t help the flutter in his chest when Kakashi looks up at him with his eyes turned upwards. He wishes he could actually see his smile, but he’d take what he could get, not that he was entitled to get anything from Kakashi anyways, he thinks a little sourly, but the thought is soon chased out of his mind when Kakashi points out his earrings and tells him that he likes them and that he’d like to get his ears pierced, but wanted to go with someone.

“I’ll go with you.” Iruka immediately offers, before mentally chastising himself, saying that Kakashi wouldn’t want to go with  _ him  _ of all people. He had plenty of friends, he didn’t need Iruka for something so trivial. And he definitely didn’t need him for the big things in his life either, Iruka reminds himself.

“I’d like that,” Kakashi tells him in a voice so soft that Iruka almost misses it and he has to ask again to make sure that he heard him correctly.

“You mean it?” Iruka asks, somewhat aghast.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Kakashi sounds so confused that it makes Iruka want to hug him right then and there, though he isn’t really why.

They keep walking until they make it to Iruka’s house, Kakashi walking him all the way up to his doorstep and Iruka fidgets awkwardly before blurting out “Do you want to come in?” Kakashi smiles sadly at him and tells him that he had to go home, and Iruka feels himself deflate. “Oh..Okay!” He runs a hand through his hair and Kakashi tugs at his own hair.

“Maybe another time?” Kakashi offers in an almost strangled voice and Iruka is quick to agree and Kakashi’s eyes turn up in a smile and then he begins to turn around. As he spins, the setting sun’s rays shine dimly into his eyes and his left eye gleams a bright red for a split second before he turns fully around and walks off with Uhei, lifting his hand in farewell. When he looks over his shoulder to look at Iruka, his eye is its normal black color and Iruka’s stuck wondering if it was the light playing tricks on him as he waves back.

He opens the door and watches Kakashi as he rounds the corner and disappears from view. His eyes travel upwards toward the sky and spots a murder of crows flying gracefully through the air and he turns and slams the door behind him, locking it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *iruka when he gets his memory back and this whole thing is explained:* u just wiped my memory so i couldnt tell anyone i carried you like a sack of potatoes didnt u ?  
kakashi: ...............................................................................maybe.
> 
> thanks for reading <3


	6. six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shows up like half a year late* hey...how yall doin..  
(this isnt edited :/)

Naruto gleefully scoops out the insides of the big, gutted pumpkin with both hands, ignoring Kushina’s warning to make sure that he doesn’t stain his shirt. The pumpkin guts come spilling out of his hands as he holds them up to his dad to see, before he turns around and shoves them into Iruka’s face, drawing out a loud  _ Naruto, quit it-  _ from him before tossing them into the shiny black trash bag Kushina had designated the pumpkin’s inner part’s new home. 

“I don’t think they’ll like living there,” Naruto muses, looking at the trash bag. “It’s such a boring color. Definitely a downgrade.” He nods back to the fat orange pumpkin.

“It’ll be better once they’re in the dumpster and have friends to talk to.” Kushina offers, tossing a stray strand of long red hair over her shoulder.

“You think so?” Naruto frowns down at the trash bag. “The dumpster doesn’t smell that good.”

“Pumpkin guts don’t have noses, Nart. They’ll have the time of their  _ lives. _ ” Minato tells him with a laugh as he scoops up the last of the pumpkin’s insides and carefully places it into the bag.

“That’s what they want you to think.” Naruto mutters under his breath, “Haven’t you guys seen Toy Story? It’s the same concept.”

“I’m sure.” Iruka nods absentmindedly. “Now hurry up and finish up. Uncarved pumpkins won’t win any awards at the fall festive next Saturday.”

With a loud yelp, Naruto turns around and tells Kushina that they have to hurry up and finish  _ now,  _ just as Iruka spots Kotetsu waltz up their driveway, textbook in hand.

He spots Iruka and his face splits into a smile that’s so wide that it dislodges the band-aid that’s plastered to his cheek. “Hey ‘Ruka!” He calls out and Iruka waves in response and brushes off any spare dirt off his dark green turtleneck, telling his parents that they were going to be in his room, before opening the door and waiting for Kotetsu to finish saying hello to his family members.

Kotetsu gives one more “Thank you for having me!” Before following Iruka through the door and up into his room.

“ _ Thank you for having me? _ ” Iruka parrots with a grin, looking back at his friend. “So polite, adults must love you.”

“Izumo told me I had to say that.” Kotetsu laughs it off with a shrug and shows the text that reads “MAKE SURE YOU TELL THEM ‘THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME’. I’D USUALLY TUTOR YOU BUT I HAVE AN EYE APPOINTMENT SO IT’S REALLY NICE OF IRUKA TO OFFER AND IT’S ALSO VERY NICE OF HIS PARENTS TO LET YOU COME OVER.” in all capital letters. 

Iruka’s eyes slide from the text to the contact, which says “‘Zu’” with a red heart next to it. “Cute contact name.” He comments and Kotestsu flushes brightly before shoving his phone into his hoodie pocket.

“It’s a joke.”

“Of course.” Iruka nods his head and kicks open his door with his foot before walking over to his desk and pulling out his own AP U.S. History textbook and tossing it on the bed.

“So,” He flops onto his bed and Kotestu follows in suit, “I’m surprised you didn’t wait for Izumo to come here, you two are both practically glued together.”

Kotetsu crosses his legs and looks down at his hands. “Yeah, me too. I wanted to go to his appointment with him and just come with him afterwards but he told me that I needed to get a grip.” He laughs humorlessly. “He tells me I’m too paranoid, but what if something bad happens and I’m not there to help him? Things have gotten worse lately.”

Iruka’s eyes sharpen at that statement, but Kotetsu continues on, covering up his slip up flawlessly. “I mean, do you  _ know  _ how many car crashes there have been lately? You might not believe it, but out of the two of us I’m actually the better driver. ‘Zu’s terrified of driving and I don’t want him to panic or anything. Those potholes are no joke and if he loses his focus things could turn bad fast.”

Iruka nods slowly. “That makes sense.” he watches Kotetsu carefully, mulling around what he had just said.

His friend mistakes his silence for judgement and he lets out a strangled laugh. “Yeah, sorry. No need for me to throw all my dependency issues onto you. My bad man, let’s just start studying, I really need to get an A on this next test.” He keeps his head down as he flips through his textbook but Iruka can see the bright red color the tips of his ears are and bites his lip, trying to figure out what to say.

“I don’t think that worrying about your friend is weird,” Kotstsu’s page flipping pasues, but he doesn’t look up, and so Iruka keeps going. “It’s obvious that you both are close, and so obviously you’d want to do anything to keep the other safe. I don’t think  _ that’s  _ the issue here.”

Kotetsu’s head jerks up and his dark eyes widen so far that Iruka’s sure that they are the size of golf balls. “What?”

“The issue,” Iruka tells him matter-of-factly, “is that you’re like, in  _ love,  _ with Izumo and act exactly like it, but you never actually told Izumo. You either just sort of assumed he knew and didn’t say anything, or just don’t want him to know but are simply too head over heels for him to keep yourself from acting like a simp. But still, Izumo isn’t a psychic and is also probably too shy to ask you flat out, so he’s just trying to deflect what he thinks is false hope.”

Kotetsu's eyebrows crinkle as he tilts his head to the side, nibbling at his lower lip. “You’re very perceptive.” he says flatly, before looking down at his textbook and Iruka is left feeling like he said something he wasn’t supposed to say.

_ Idiot. This is what you get for meddling with other people’s feelings. When are you gonna start minding your own business? _

But then Kotetsu's flopping onto his back and throwing his legs into Iruka’s lap. “God, what am I supposed to do? We’ve been best friends since I can remember. I don’t wanna ruin it by telling him I like him. He’s too important for me to lose. What do I  _ say? _ ”

“I don’t know,” Iruka tells him gently, busying himself with fixing the cuffs on Kotetsu’s jeans. “I’ve never had a best friend that I’ve been in love with for years.”

“Bullshit. You don’t know how to confess to  _ anyone.  _ You were drooling after Genma for  _ days  _ before you realized he was dating Ro and you didn’t say shit!” Kotetsu accuses, lifting his head up enough so that he can glare at Iruka.

“And it’s a good thing I didn’t, do you know how embarrassing it would have been if I told him I liked him and he had to tell me that he’s dating someone else? We probably wouldn’t be friends right now.” Iruka retorts, before watching Kotetsu’s expression fall, and immediately bites his tongue.  _ Okay, wrong place wrong time for that. _

“Do you think Izumo’s dating someone?” Iruka watches his crestfallen expression and has to bite the inside of his cheeks to keep from laughing.

“Do you think he could really hide a whole ass  _ significant other  _ from you? Besides, you take up too much of his time for him to be dating someone.” Iruka teasingly tugs at Ko’s leg hair and he shrieks before lightly kicking Iruka in the stomach in retaliation.

“Shut up.” Kotetsu mutters, tugging at a spiky strand of hair.

Iruka rolls his eyes. “What I’m  _ saying,  _ is that Izumo could easily cut down spending time with you if he wanted to date someone else, but he hasn’t. Apparently he likes spending as much time with you as you do with him, although I don’t see why.” His lips twitch up as he watches Kotetsu snap up into a sitting position, staring intently.

“Bro you think so?”

“ _ Bro.  _ No one spends that much time with someone unless they want to, trust me.”

“You’re a  _ genius. _ ” Kotestu nods to himself, while tapping the opened textbook. “I’m so glad I asked you instead of Kakashi, he’d just tell me to shut up and focus on the Spanish Inquisition. Not the best with emotions, that one.”

Iruka’s eyes bug out of his head at the mention of Kakashi’s name. “Kakashi?” He asks in a voice that’s much weaker than he’d like to admit.

“Yeah! The guy’s like a prodigy or something. Straight A’s. 5.0 GPA. I don’t know how he does it, he’s barely ever in class, but holy shit if I had his brains I’d never complain again.”

“Of course he’s super smart.” Iruka laughs humorlessly, thinking about his own 3.8 GPA. He had thought it was pretty good, until now.

Kotetsu seems to notice this and pats his shoulder in mock comfort. “Don’t worry about it man, my GPA is a 2.3. Which annoys Izumo so much. He has a 4.0 and he keeps telling me that if I don’t get my shit together we won’t get into the same college. So I  _ have  _ to get an A. It’s still the first grading period, so I can definitely get it up. Hopefully. Wow, I sure turned this into a Izumo rant real quick, do I do that a lot? Weird.” he trails off, lost in thought and Iruka raises an eyebrow but lets him have his moment while he leafs through his own textbook, looking for the chapter on the Spanish Inquisition. 

Picking up his water bottle, he starts unconsciously sipping the water as he scans the chapter, locating the important pieces of information that he had highlighted earlier this week.

“So, how long have you liked Kakashi?”

Water flies out of Iruka’s nose and he coughs loudly, tapping at his chest with one hand. “What?”

“You like Kakashi, don’t you?” Kotetsu tilts his head to the side, looking carefully at Iruka’s expression and Iruka can feel an embarrassed blush rise onto his cheeks. Suddenly, Iruka sees the appeal in wearing a face mask like Kakashi does.

“We’re discussing that at another time. It’s almost 5, which means Izumo is done with his appointment and is almost here and he’ll have my head on a platter if he gets here and finds that I haven’t taught you shit. I like my head on my body, not severed from it.”

“Shit! The Spanish Inquisition. Maybe I was wrong; I should have gone with Kakashi, he doesn’t deal with people’s bullshit like you do. You get distracted too fast.”

“Shut up moron! At least I tried to help-”

“Iruka!” Kushina’s voice floats up the stairs. “Your other friend is here! I’m sending him up!”

Iruka and Kotetsu look at each other with wide eyes.

“”Fuck.””

~

“-And  _ that’s  _ how Artemisia Gentilesi was influenced by Caravaggio in her painting  _ Judith Slaying Holofernes. _ Judith was living the life.” Tsunade finishes dreamily, staring at the woman who was decapitating a man in the painting and Iruka scoots back an inch into his chair. He has a pretty good idea who she was thinking about; she’d only ranted about how much she hated Orochimaru, the school nurse, enough times that if anyone saw him they’d probably take him out for her so that she’d shut up about it. Or maybe the APUSH teacher, Jiraiya. Either way, it was only a matter of time before their Art History teacher was happily charged with double manslaughter. 

“Hey Iruka!” he looks over to where Kotestu had called from. “Look!” He holds up a paper with a bright red A on the top. Underneath it was the words “You Better Not Have Cheated, Halfbrain. Good Job Though :)” and Iruka scratches at his scar, staring at the words written on the paper, before realizing that this was the Spanish Inquisition test that Iruka and Izumo (mainly Izumo) had taught him. He grins brightly and puts both of his thumbs up and Kotetsu grins back at him, before shoving it back into his green US History folder.

The bell rings, just as Tsunade was looking through her files for their homework and everyone runs out of the room like their life depends on it.

“HEY! DON’T THINK I WON’T GIVE YOU BRATS ALL F’S FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT.” She calls after them, already slumping in her chair and pulling out her SMARTwater water bottle, chugging its contents.

“Iruka.”

He spins around on his heels and looks up at Kakashi, watching him walk lazily out of the room, clearly not concerned about getting homework from Tsunade. “Yeah?”

Kakashi stares at him for a long time, mismatched eyes drilling into Iruka’s own and he swallows and takes a step back without realizing. Finally, Kakashi opens his mouth. “You took my thirty bucks.”

“Huh?” Iruka looks at him like he grew a second head. “I can assure you, I didn’t touch your money. If I did, I would have eaten lunch today.”

“Not that thirty bucks.” Kakashi tells him mournfully. “The thirty bucks Kotetsu usually pays me to tutor him the two days a year that Izumo isn’t with him.”

Iruka blinks twice. “You make him pay?”

“I don’t, he just offers and I accept.” Kakashi tells him smoothly, walking into his personal space.

“That’s...nice.” Iruka tells him, biting the inside of his mouth to try and keep himself from blushing. “Guess you are an asshole.”

“Maa..I just do whatever works best for me, there’s nothing wrong with that.” Kakashi places a hand over his heart, feigning hurt.

“Yeah, okay. What do you use the money for, drugs?” Iruka rolls his eyes and gently pushes Kakashi back.

He takes the push with grace, stepping back and laughing. “No, I use it to buy shit for my dogs.”

“Your dogs?”

“I have eight.” He tells Iruka solemnly, before pulling out his phone and showing Iruka pictures. For some reason, Iruka is hit with dejavu, but he can’t put his finger on why.

“I thought you only had one.” Iruka looks at the dogs in the photo, spotting Uhei in the mix.

“Only one?” The part of Kakashi’s face that Iruka can see looks scandalized and Iruka laughs. 

“Guess you’re not one for moderation, huh?”

Kakashi’s eyes curve upwards, and he brings up two fingers in a salute and starts to walk away.

“Hey!” Iruka calls after him. “Where are you going?”

“I gotta take Sasuke to the park!” Kakashi calls back with a lazy flap of his hand. “I promised.”

Iruka’s mind flashes, and he fakes a surprised expression. “Real shit? Cuz I promised Naruto I’d take him but I didn’t want to be the only old person there.” he walks towards Kakashi and tugs at his black sleeve. “So we should go together.” 

Iruka could swear he sees Kakashi blush, but then he blinks and all traces of color are gone, so he isn’t sure, though at this point he doesn’t think he trusts what his eyes see too much. Kakashi pauses, before shrugging and continuing down the hall, though at a much slower pace so that Iruka could keep up.

When Kakashi’s attention is elsewhere, Iruka opens his Messenger app and texts his mom.

_ Tell nart im taking him to the park with sasuke _

  
  
  


They pick up both eight year olds fairly quickly and soon both kids are running around the park, screaming insults at each other. Iruka watches as Sasuke beats Naruto to the only available swing and turns his mouth slightly upwards, his version of a smirk. In return, Naruto sticks out his tongue and turns on his heels and rushes towards the slide.

Sasuke realizes that he lost Naruto’s attention and slowly slips off of the swing, eyes trained on what his friend. Naruto, clearly aware that all eyes were on him, grins brightly at his audience before creeping to the edge next to the slide and jumping off.

Iruka feels his heart jump into his throat as he watches his little brother jump from a 10 foot structure, but thankfully the little gremlin lands well on his feet. 

“DID YOU SEE THAT, IRUKA! I BET THAT YOU CAN’T DO THAT! OR YOUR FRIEND WITH SHITTY HAIR.”

_ “Where did you learn that language?”  _ Iruka demands, standing up and storming towards the small ball of energy.

“Kiba.” Sasuke tells him innocently, and Naruto sends him a betrayed expression. 

“You can’t say stuff like that.” Iruka tells him in a heated tone, while Kakashi touches his hair, tugging slightly at it.

“You think my hair is shitty?” Naruto doubles over with laughter and even Sasuke looks like he’s dangerously close to cracking a smile.

“Yeah! Your hair’s shitty and your voice is even shitter!” Naruto crows, pointing a chubby finger at him, grin dangerously wide. Sasuke’s eyes bug out of his head when he hears that and he turns to Kakashi, waiting to see how he’ll retaliate. 

“Maa...you think  _ I’m  _ shitty? Have you taken a look at yourself? Not a pretty sight if I do say so.” Kakashi taps his pointer finger against his masked lips. “Though I guess if it makes you feel better about yourself, I’ll let you continue making fun of me. After all, little kids need to be validated and stuff.” He tells Naruto in a completely deadpan voice, and Naruto frowns, scratching at his head.

“What? I stopped listening the second you started talking.” He smiles brightly and rubs the back of his neck. “Oh well, probably nothing important, since you’re old and dumb.”

Kakashi turns to Iruka. “He called me old.” he whines, and Iruka snorts. “Of course he did, your hair is white. Old people have white hair.”

“My hair, is  _ silver.”  _ Kakashi corrects, eyes narrowing.

“Sorry, sorry.  _ Gray.  _ Old people have gray hair. You’re right. My bad.” Iruka hears Naruto laugh behind him and he can see Sasuke cover his mouth with his hand.

“You should be glad that there’s witnesses here-” he gestures to the tons of little kids running around- “because otherwise you’d be dead.” Kakashi draws a line on his throat with his finger and Iruka raises an eyebrow.

“Wow I’m terrified right now.”

“You should be.” Iruka turns around to look at Sasuke, who stares back blankly at him, before shrugging at Kakashi, who’s giving his cousin a look that Iruka can’t decipher through his mask. 

~

Iruka parts ways with his parents and Naruto at the festival, walking off to join his friends that are waiting for him a few feet away.

“Make sure you stay safe! And call if you need anything!” Kushina calls after him and he sends her a thumbs up before watching them disappear into the crowd to submit Naruto’s jack-o-lantern to the competition and goes to join his friends. 

The sun is just starting to set, painting the sky in brilliant yellows and oranges that match the trees below, but because of the bright lanterns set up everywhere, it won’t get too dark and Iruka is eternally grateful for it, and by the looks his friends are sending the lights he’s pretty sure they feel the same way.

“So,” He shoves his hands in his unzipped orange windbreaker (He and Naruto had gotten matching ones when they had stopped at a thrift shop back in Pennsylvania on their drive up and Naruto had insisted they wear them tonight) and smiles, wind nipping at his nose, “What are we doing first?”

“We gotta get food.” Anko says decisively, while reaching out to fix Iruka’s black turtleneck, smoothing it out.

“They have really good caramel and salt popcorn.” Genma agrees, messing with the red bandana he has placed in his hair. “Like.  _ really good. _ ”

“I thought we agreed to bring snacks from home, since they’re so expensive here.” Raidou asks Genma in an accusing tone and Genma just bats his eyelashes at his boyfriend and wraps him in a big hug, looking up at him with a huge smile.

Raidou, is apparently a superhuman because he doesn’t seem one bit impressed with Genma’s theatrics, because he just reaches up and flicks him in the nose and shakes his head before surrendering to Genma’s death grip. “I knew you’d do this.” he groans, throwing his head back and Genma laughs and tells him not to worry because he convinced his grandmother to give him funds,

“You’re going to run that poor woman dry.” Anko shakes her head in mock despair.

“Hey no I won’t! This is the first time she’s given me money all month. God.”

Anko rolls her eyes but doesn’t respond, looking down at her phone instead. “Ko said that he and Izumo are almost here, so I guess we’ll wait for them. So sad, I wanted to get lost in here before they could find us.” She says with a laugh, and Genma looks over her shoulder with interest.

“What’s taking them so long, they’re usually always on time ‘cuz of Zu.”

Anko flashes him a grin. “Kotetsu probably did something to make him stop for a bit, you know he’s a bad influence on Izumo.” She throws Iruka a wink and Iruka’s eyes widen and a small smile spreads onto his face, thinking back to the conversation he had with Kotetsu last week at his house. 

Sure enough, he hears the loud crunching of leaves and the sound of running. They all turn around and watch as Kotetsu is (for once) in the lead, hand wrapped tightly against Izumo’s and dragging him towards them with a dopey grin plastered onto his face. Izumo, on the other hand, looks more flustered than Iruka’s ever seen him, cheeks bright red and eyes focused on he and Kotetsu’s intertwined fingers. 

“Guys! I need to introduce you to someone! This,” He drags Izumo in front of him and wraps his arms around him, “Is my boyfriend!” he smiles brightly, and Izumo turns an even brighter shade of red but elbows him lightly and mutters “They know who I am, moron.”

“Oh my god  _ finally. _ ” Genma gushes letting go of Ro and grabbing Izumo’s hands, and exclaiming “You got your man Zu! You actually did it! All those nights we stayed up trying to figure out how to get Ko to ask you finally paid off!” Izumo chokes on air and Kotetsu bursts out laughing and tells them they have Iruka to thank for that.

“Oh thank god.” Anko mutters. “He wasn’t listening to me.”

Raidou laughs softly. “To be fair he rarely listens to anyone but Izumo.”

“Which was the  _ problem.”  _ Genma tells his boyfriend, waving his hands around to emphasize his point and almost smacks Iruka in the face.

“Food!” Anko emphasizes and begins herding them towards the vendors.

As they get closer, hundreds of mouthwatering scents waft their way towards Iruka’s nose and his stomach begins to growl. The smell of popcorn, candied apples, hotdogs, cottoncandy, churros, and other fried foods is so thick that he can almost see the scents wafting around in the breeze. 

Genma grabs Ro and Iruka’s hands and buys them all one medium bucket full of popcorn to share, before announcing he’s done his good deed for the day and herding back to where Anko was pulling at wispy pink and blue cotton candy, Izumo was trying and failing to eat a caramel apple, and Kotetsu was eating a churro.

“They taste better than last year.” He informs Genma solemnly and hands him a piece to try, which the other promptly pops into his mouth and chews carefully, focusing on the flavor. After a few minutes of silence, his expression brightens and he nods enthusiastically before swallowing and verbally expressing his agreement.

“Anko? Hey guys it’s Anko!” Iruka hears a familiar sounding voice and turns to see Kurenai dragging Kakashi and two other people he’s seen but never learned the names off. 

“Kurenai!” Anko throws her arms around her, talking so fast that Iruka can’t understand what she is saying. 

Kakashi and the other two individuals extract themselves from Kurenai’s grip, and Iruka can feel his heartbeat speed up when he looks at Kakashi. Kakashi doesn’t notice him at first, pausing to look at Izumo and Kotetsu with a cocked head, before laughing quietly and shaking his head before turning to Genma and leaning into him and telling him he was exhausted and that Obito dragged him here before running off somewhere with Rin.

Genma pats his head sympathetically. “That’s rough buddy. Looks like you’ll just have to hang out with us! Right Iruka?”

Kakashi’s eye that wasn’t pressed up on Genma’s chest snaps open and makes eye contact with Iruka. “You actually came?”

Iruka crosses his arms and frowns at him. “Why wouldn’t I come?”

Kakashi shrugs, turning his whole face into Genma’s shirt. “Thought you were scared of the ‘monsters’” comes the muffled reply.

Genma bites back a bark of laughter as he peels Kakashi off of him. “Baby you know I love you but we can’t let Ro know that you’re my side hoe, he might get jealous.” he winks at him and waggles his eyebrows at him and Kakashi rolls his eyes and mutters “you wish I was your side hoe” before grabbing Raidou’s arm and telling him he made a big mistake when he asked Genma out and Raidou laughs and tells him he’s well aware. 

The other two people (who Genma tells Iruka are named Gai and Asuma) excuse themselves, telling them that they had agreed to volunteer at one of the attractions. After politely telling them goodbye, Iruka notices that Anko and Kurenai also vanished, not that that was too surprising. Anko tended to disappear and reappear. 

Eventually Genma started being a bit too handsy with Raidou so he politely excuses them both before letting Genma drag him away, waving awkwardly to them and apologizing to all the people that Genma pushed aside in his quest to get to his car and Iruka has to bring his hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing at the couple. Then he looked at Kotetsu, who was looking at Izumo with a glassy expression while Izumo was politely staying with Iruka and Kakashi to ensure that they don’t feel left behind but Iruka can tell he’d rather be somewhere with Kotetsu, alone. 

He tugs at Kakashi’s sleeve and Kakashi leans his head down impassively and Iruka whispers “you better not abandon me after I do this.” and tells Ko and Zu to go hangout, since it’s their first day officially together, before Kakashi can respond.

After a little too enthusiastic from Kotetsu and a slightly hesitant “are you sure?” from Izumo, they both vanish from view, leaving Iruka alone with Kakashi.

Kakashi stares at him emotionlessly, before telling him “I’m leaving you.” He begins to turn around, but Iruka grabs his arm tightly and pulls him back. Kakashi stumbles forwards, chest pressed against Iruka’s and face pressed against his neck, and freezes. Iruka feels him inhale deeply, and again feels a tug at a memory he can’t grasp. Though he thinks he’d remember if Kakashi had shoved his face in his throat and fucking  _ scented  _ it. 

He expects Kakashi to immediately bounce away from the physical contact like always, but Kakashi stays slumped against him, inhaling and exhaling slowly. Iruka pokes at his sides, but he doesn’t even flinch, just nuzzles his neck even harder. Iruka unconsciously lifts his head towards the sky, baring his throat, and focuses his eyes on the full moon that is floating above him.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like this, they were in a pretty secluded area and everyone avoided them, but as time went on, the moon’s pale light began morphing into blood red. 

“Hey look! It’s a blood moon!” Someone calls out and Iruka tears his eyes away from the moon, putting his chin back down against Kakashi’s head. Underneath him he feels Kakashi shudder and then stiffen, before slowly peeling himself off of Iruka.

When he looks at Iruka, it’s like he doesn’t even recognize him, like he’s looking through him. His eyes are unfocused, and one of his eyes is  _ red.  _

Iruka backs away, but he doesn’t think Kakashi is even aware of him right now. He lifts his head up, sniffing the air before suddenly vanishing from view, leaving Iruka stunned and alone, in the middle of an unknown area at night. 

When he hears the wolf howl, he doesn’t even react. He just slides down the pole he didn’t know he had been leaning on and sits down on the dirt, hugging his knees to his chest and trying to keep tears (he isn’t even sure why he’s crying) from slipping out of his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading nacscjlbscbjl comment if you would like to👀


	7. seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im 112 pages into this fic 🤢 imagine writing 112 pages of a naruto fanfiction 🤮 im so embarrassed 🤧  
anyways i have 100 projects due so ofc i wrote this instead <3  
again this isn't edited . i am so sorry :/  
i did my best though!

“And he just left you?” The bright pink bubble that Anko blew out of her mouth pops with a loud  _ smack _ as she raises one perfectly threaded eyebrow, incredulous. They’re all gathered in the school parking lot, sitting on top of Genma’s beat up yellow 1996 Voltzwagen, listening to Iruka complain about being left alone at the festival yesterday.

“Ye-ah,” Iruka draws out the syllables in the word, tugging at a strand of dark hair that had fallen loose from his tight ponytail. “He didn’t even  _ say  _ anything, just got all blurry eyed and then left.” He throws his arms up in the air, making a “poof” gesture, almost smacking poor Izumo in the face.

Genma pulls his not-sebon out of his mouth and points it at Iruka, the thin silver object hanging daintily between his middle finger and thumb. “Kakashi’s a bitch even on his best days, but even he wouldn’t just leave someone alone in an area that they don’t know well at  _ night.  _ Something had to have happened. Was he acting weirdly before?” He twirls his wrist in circles, waving around the not-sebon in a way that would have Iruka worried if he didn’t know how well Genma’s precision with that thing was.

“You mean you didn’t notice?” Iruka asks him, dumbfound.

Genma pauses, his dark eyebrows pulling together in confusion. “The fuck was so important that I supposed to notice it?”

Kotetsu laughs loudly and draps the hand that wasn’t currently intertwined with Izumo’s around Genma’s shoulders. “He was a little  _ busy  _ at the moment, in case you somehow forgot about him almost jumping poor Raidou right then and there for everyone and their mother to see.”

If Genma was anyone else, he would have blushed deeply and looked away, but unfortunately he wasn’t anyone else so he just sits up straighter with a sleazy grin plastered on his face as he offers to give them a play-by-play of what he did last night.

“Aren’t you supposed to not kiss and tell?” Anko jabs a finger into her friend’s side, her purple acrylic nail burying itself into the thick red jacket Genma had on.

He blinks and tilts his head to the side, thick strands of hair falling into his face. “Who invented  _ that  _ stupid rule? Anyways, that’s not the point. Back to Iruka’s boy issues, if you please madame.” He removes her finger out of his side and places her hand on the roof of the car, before patting it gently with a crooked grin.

“Sorry, continue.” She makes a ‘go on’ motion with her hand and Iruka huffs out a quiet breath before continuing with what he was saying earlier.

“The moon turned fucking red, a blood moon or whatever.”Iruka waves his hand dismissively, that wasn’t something too out of the ordinary. He’d seen it before in other places, so he wasn’t too worried about that.

Until he notices the way Genma’s usually expressive face goes carefully blank, how Anko just turns her head, like she didn’t even hear him, and how Ko and Zu are suddenly incredibly interested in the chipping paint on the car. Iruka sighs, rolling his eyes. He hadn’t even mentioned the whole eye-turning-red ordeal yet.

_ Oh well, no use barking up the same old tree. Time to switch up the topic.  _

“So,” he puts his arms out behind them and leans on them, looking up at the dull sunshine that is weakly radiating what little heat it can muster in the October air. “What are you guys doing for Halloween? Any trick-or-treating plans? He asks teasingly, eyeing his friends who are quick to laugh, glad to have an excuse to forget about the moon mentioning incident.

“Nah,” Kotetsu says readily, moving his arm off of Genma’s shoulders and scratching at one of the band-aids still plastered to his face, “No one goes trick-or-treating here, it’s not all that safe here with all the wildlife and the potholes in the road. Different friend groups just have get togethers at their houses. Ours,” He gestures at all of them, “Is at Kakashi and Obito’s house. Your parents will probably know about it by the time you get home. Sasuke’s gonna be over, and he’s been dying to have Naruto over, or so Obito told me.”

“Oh. Kakashi’s house.  _ Great.”  _ Iruka snorts, rubbing at his scar.

“It’s not gonna be too bad. Their house is huge and a lot of people are gonna be over. So you won’t have to worry about interacting with Kakashi unless you actively search him out.” Izumo tells him, brushing his bangs out of his face while wrestling his other hand free of Kotetsu’s death grip.

Kotetsu lets out a loud whine, and Izumo smacks him on the arm and tells him that if he’s any clingier they’ll morph into one person. He has a soft smile on his face as he tells his boyfriend that though, so Iruka knows that he’s not actually mad at him. Not that Iruka thinks that Izumo could stay mad at Kotetsu for long, even if he tries to act like he is.

“Ugh, quit the lovers spat. I could barely stand you two while you were still pining.” Anko groans, throwing her head back and letting her chopped purple hair fall loosely to her shoulders.

“Lovers spat?” Izumo’s forehead crinkles. “If you think  _ that  _ was a ‘lovers spat’ then you have a big storm coming.”

“Ooh. Vine reference, haven’t heard one of those in a while.” Anko flaps her hand in the general direction of Izumo, not bothering to look up to see where he actually is. If she had, she would have realized that she had been about an inch from poking out Genma’s eye with her nails.

“Watch where you put your claws, crazy bitch!” Genma shrieks, slapping her hand away from his face.

“Shut up, whore.” Anko shoots back, making a finger gun at her friend. 

“You  _ wish  _ you could shut me up.” Genma fires back, leaning in and making Anko lean back ever-so-slightly to avoid getting stabbed in the face with his not-sebon.

“Yes, I do.” She tells him sweetly, putting her finger onto the tip of his “toothpick” and pushing it back while leaning in with a toothy grin, parts of her pink bubblegum oozing through the cracks of her teeth. 

He taps the bottom of her chin lightly. “Close your mouth when you chew.”

“I  _ was _ n’t chewing, you airheaded bimbo-” Anko starts before Iruka wiggles his way between them and gives them both a sunny grin.

Once Genma and Anko started, they could be just as bad as Kotetsu and Izumo, except that they wouldn’t make up for days. Iruka has dealt with enough second hand silent treatment to last him a lifetime, and he’s known them for about two months give or take. “Let’s all try to act like the kind loving friends we want everyone to think we are, until after tomorrow.” He tells them cheerily, with a hint of a threat that doesn’t go unnoticed by either of them.

“Fine.” Genma rolls his eyes back into his head, his eyes always go back farther than normal and his entire iris disappears for a moment before rolling back down to where their natural place is, and smiles sweetly at Anko, batting his too long eyelashes at her. “Sorry for upsetting you, babe.”

Anko’s smile grows big and sarcastic as she spins her index finger in circles next to her head. “No problem, sweetie pie.”

To anyone else, it would look pretty hostile, but Iruka’s known them both long enough to know that all traces of animosity had vanished, and he lets out a relieved sigh. If they were mad at each other tomorrow, they wouldn’t be together and it would be harder to avoid Kakashi. If they were together, it was easier for Iruka to use their presence as a shield. Which sounds extremely selfish, but Iruka’s allowed to be selfish once in a while. Besides, he bought Genma SunChips at lunch today, so he owes him.

~

The Uchiha’s driveway is already full of cars when Kushina pulls into the driveway, parking in the first empty spot that she spots. Naruto is out of the car and sprinting towards the door before she’s even done putting the car in park, ignoring her shouts about not being safe as he weaves through the Halloween decorations littering the front yard. 

Kushina is out before Iruka can blink, managing to scoop Naruto before he reaches the door and holding him up to her eye level and begins scolding him for not waiting. Minato and Iruka slip out of their respective car doors, Minato closing the door that Kushina had left open in her haste to catch up with Naruto and then locking the car door. 

“That’s not safe, Naruto! You’re not allowed to leave the car until I tell you it’s okay, okay?” Kushina’s eyebrows are furrowed as she looks at her youngest’s scrunched up nose and holds him up higher, shaking him slightly.

He quickly caves, groaning loudly. “Yes momm.” He drags out the syllables and starts wiggling out of her grasp, so she puts him down on his feet and grabs his hand and tells him that they were going to walk to the door together. Naruto huffs but doesn’t try to pull his hand away, letting her lead the way towards the door, which swings open before they even had a chance to knock.

“Kushina!” A pretty dark haired woman calls out with a bright smile, waving with one hand and gesturing for someone inside the house to come over.

Iruka sees his mom grin and wave back with her free hand. “Mikoto! Long time no see!” She calls out teasingly, in the way that implies that she had in fact seen her very recently. Iruka observes the other, trying to figure out how they knew each other.

He gets his answer when Sasuke pokes his head out from the door, before pressing himself against her leg. He doesn’t stay there long once he sees Naruto. Grinning big, he waves for Naruto to follow him and disappears in the house, Naruto hot on his heels. Mikoto doesn’t seem one bit phased by their antics, sidestepping smoothly out of the way so that Naruto doesn’t run into her in his attempt to catch up with his friend.

“You must be Iruka!” She smiles kindly at him. “Naruto is always talking about you.”

Iruka’s mouth turns down ever so slightly. “Nothing weird, right?” Naruto had a tendency to spill all the embarrassing things he’s done to strangers. Kushina tells him he does it because he admires him and just wants to talk about him, and those are the things he remembers most, but that doesn’t mean that Iruka has to be happy about it. 

Sasuke’s mom schools her facial expression into something that is a bit too neutral for Iruka’s taste and assures him that it was nothing too weird. Iruka doesn’t believe her though. He just groans, throwing his head back and she smothers a laugh in the back of her hand before moving back and holding the door open wider so that they can come in.

“Minato!” One of Kakashi’s uncles- Hashirama- calls out to his dad loudly, waving him over to where he had been talking to a group of people. “How’s my favorite elementary school teacher doing?”

“Pretty good,” Minato answers with an easy grin, walking over to where Hashirama was standing. Iruka watches him walk over with a confused expression, trying to figure out just where in the hell the two of them managed to not only meet, but befriend each other. 

“He sometimes picks up Sasuke for me, so he’s met Minato before since he’s Sasuke’s teacher.” Mikoto offers, and Iruka whips his head around to look at her, before smiling in thanks and walking away. How was it that all of their family members had such sharp eyes? They noticed  _ everything. _

He walks over to where Kakashi’s uncles were standing to say hello and narrowly escapes being roped into whatever weird discussion that certain group of adults were having. He didn’t ever want to find out, but they were all laughing, so he supposes that at least they didn’t find it weird. He makes his way towards Obito’s room, following the sound of Izumo’s screech and Anko’s loud laughter. 

About halfway down the hall, the bathroom door swings open, almost smacking him in the face and he comes face to face with Tsunade. He blinks twice, staring at her and she looks down at him with furrowed eyebrows.

“What are you _ doing _ here?” He finally asks, trying to figure out just why the hell his AP Art HIstory teacher was in Kakashi’s house. 

“I’m Hashirama’s daughter.” She deadpans, placing her hands on her hips, eyeing him suspiciously. “What are  _ you  _ doing here?”

Iruka pauses, eyeing his teacher and then back at Hashirama, before looking back at her again. She exhales loudly, before muttering something about having to explain her entire family history to some random teenager. “I was born when he was like 17. No, I’m not telling you my life’s story. Yes, I am unfortunately related to Obito and Kakashi, somehow. Now go find your friends. Brat.” She brushes past him with a loud sigh, and suddenly the way Kakashi and Obito interact with her in class makes a whole lot more sense. 

He practically runs down the hall, throwing the door open and smacking poor Gai’s shoulder in the process. “You’re related to  _ Tsunade?”  _

Obito freezes mid speech, rolls his eyes up towards the ceiling, and then looks back at Iruka. “Tragically, yes. She’s  _ such  _ a cheapskate when it comes to gifts it’s unreal.” he flops back onto the bed, throwing his arms out on his sides. One hand smacks Kakashi in the head and the other one lands in Rin’s lap. Kakashi reaches out to hit his sibling, but Rin catches his hand with ungodly speed, raising an eyebrow at him and mouthing something to him. Kakashi pulls his hand away but doesn’t try to hit Obito again, rolling his eyes.

Rin smiles up at Iruka, white teeth glinting in the dimly lit room. “Hi, Iruka!” She chirps, patting the empty space on the bed next to her. “Do you want to sit?”

“That’s okay.” He tells her politely, not wanting to sit that close to Kakashi. He’s about to sit down when he hears a loud shriek and is almost knocked over by a tiny person running into the room at full speed.

A small girl with bubblegum pink hair clambers up onto Kakashi’s shoulders, grabbing fistfuls of his hair to steady himself. “Kakashi!” She whines, tugging harder at his hair. “Kiba’s trying to get Akamaru to slobber on me. He already got Ino!” 

As if on cue, another small girl with bleached blonde hair storms in, her hands balled into tiny fists of rage as she walks over to where the pink haired girl and Kakashi were sitting. Her high ponytail swishes back and forth as she looks around the room, observing everyone inside, before making her way to Asuma.

“Look at what dog-breath did to me!” She yells, holding out a thick piece of her hair that looks damp, probably from dog slobber, for Asuma to see. 

Asuma, to his credit, does a very good job at looking concerned for the wellbeing of her hair. “Oh no, that’s not good.” He says absently, reaching out to feel the hair before bringing his fingers to his nose and smelling it. He flinches almost immediately, coughing, “Man, Kiba should really invest in cleaning his dog’s mouth, oh my  _ God- _ ”

“ASUMA!” The girl, Ino, shouts loud enough to shatter glass, face going red as she opens her mouth to give him the lecture of a lifetime. 

Genma rubs his ears, looking mildly impressed at her vocal cords, before waiting to see what the three foot something girl was going to do to Asuma, who was over six feet, with a little too much interest. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for Asuma, two more kids run into the room, knocking Ino over with their momentum. 

“Shika! Choji! Watch where you’re going. Dummies.” She turns her attention on them, eyes narrowed into thin slits, but doesn’t continue. The pink haired girl apparently decided it was safe enough to leave Kakashi’s head and slides off of him without a second glance and walks over to her friend, tugging at her arm. 

“Ino, don’t waste your time on them. We gotta keep a look out for Kiba and Naruto! They’re gonna try and get us while we forget about them.” She warns, pointing at the door.

Ino scoffs loudly and tosses her hair behind her shoulder. “Sakura, the moment I see them I am going to break their tiny little neck with my bare hands.” She seethes, making a wringing motion with her hands, before pausing and looking back at her friend. “But I might need your help. You’re a lot stronger than me. So you can hold them down while I rip out their throats!” She says cheerily, as if she had just told her that she was going to Disneyworld instead of issuing a death threat.

Sakura’s eyes narrow suspiciously, peering her dark green eyes into Ino’s light blue. “You just want me as an accomplice so that when you get to jail I have to go too.” She accuses, pointing one tiny finger at Ino’s chest.

Ino, to her credit, doesn’t even bother trying to deny it. “Well duh. That way we can be roommates. I am  _ not  _ gonna live with some random girl I don’t know. Besides, we pinky promised that we’d always help each other no matter what. And your pinky falls off when you break a pinky promise, which is probably worse than jail.”

Sakura nods carefully, looking down at her pinky. “Alright. I’ll help you kill Kiba and Naruto.” Her smile brightens and she pumps up her fists. “It’ll be fun! We should get TenTen and Hinata to help too!”

“That’s right!” Genma calls out. “Kick their butts!”

“Too late!” A familiar voice echoes through the room and Iruka sees Naruto climb out from behind Obito’s dresser and jump towards the two girls in slow motion. He doesn’t even have time to worry about him breaking anything or wonder how Naruto  _ got  _ there when Kakashi reaches out and plucks him out of the air and sets him down on the ground.

“Awh.” Naruto kicks at Kakashi’s shin lightly. “Why’d you do that, old man?”

“A little birdie told me you were trying to mess up Sakura’s hair.” Kakashi tells him seriously. “Sakura gets  _ very  _ angry when people mess up her hair. 

“Why?” Naruto tilts his head, looking at Sakura’s hair. “It’s not like it looks that good anyways.” Kakashi’s eyes widen and Obito’s hands come up to cover his mouth, both shifting out of the way and leaving Naruto to try and figure out what he said wrong.

It doesn’t take him long to realize. One look at the expression on Sakura's face and he’s gulping loudly and trying to backpedal out of the room. 

Ino’s sharp eyes catch this and she barks out “Shika!” and the tired looking boy sticks out his leg and trips Naruto, watching him fall to the ground with absolutely no remorse. 

“Sorry,” he tells him in a monotone voice, “I’ve known Ino longer, and she gets very troublesome when she’s angry with me.” He pulls back his leg just as Sakura throws herself at him and lands on top of Naruto, screaming out language that would probably bring at least one adult running. 

Instead of adults however, her screams seem to summon  _ kids,  _ and soon there's a whole swarm of them pouring into the room and taking sides, arguing loudly with one another while trying to keep other kids from interfering with Sakura and Naruto’s fight. Iruka sees Kotetsu placing bets with Genma on who will win, and he watches Asuma and Obito lean in and place their own bets with only mild exasperation. If they wanted to lose money over a bunch of kids, then he wouldn’t stop them. Though based on how things were heading… he’d bet on Sakura 100%. Not that he’d ever tell Naruto that.

Naruto had an excess of energy and was very good at squirming his way out of tight situations, but it seems like he finally met his match. Sakura is strong and steady and  _ determined.  _ Not to mention fueled by rage.

“Naruto!” A small brown haired boy with a puppy hanging out of his hoodie’s pocket throws his hands up in disbelief. “What are you  _ doing? _ Hurry up and kick her ass!” 

Sakura whips her head around, glaring something fierce. “You’re next!” She promises, before turning back to Naruto, who finally seemed to have realized that insulting someone’s hair was probably not the best way to go.

Kakashi places his own bet, watching them with an extremely amused expression. Sasuke is standing next to him, looking equally amused but trying to hide it. “I think Sakura’s gonna win.” He tells Kakashi after tugging on his sleeve to get his attention. Kakashi nods seriously and tells Genma, who’s keeping track.

Naruto lets out an indignant yell, lifting his head up to glare at his friend. “I heard that, idiot!”

“You’re the idiot for picking a fight with Sakura.” Sasuke fires back, completely deadpan. 

“Am not! I’m-” His response gets muffled when Sakura grabs a stray pillow that was on the ground and clamps the orange and blue object onto his face, holding it down.

“Five!” The kids begin to call out, and Naruto begins struggling harder and Sakura pushes down with even more strength, biting at her lower lip as she tries to keep the pillow on his face.

“Four!”

“Three!” Most of his friends have joined in the chanting and Iruka watches helplessly as his poor baby brother meets his match.

“Two!” Naruto tries to yank her hair, but it’s short so his fingers miss it by seconds and he lets out a muffled yell, trying to get her off one final time.

“ONE!” Sakura jumps off, laughing loudly as she looks down at Naruto, who grumpily pulls the pillow off of his head. When he sees all of his friends staring at him with mirroring grins, he throws the pillow back over his head and groans, throwing his hand over the pillow.

“I hope we all learned something important here.” Kakashi’s deadpan voice drawls, as he continues to look down at Naruto’s form. “We don’t insult Saukra’s hair and get away with it, right Naruto?”

“Shut up, old man.” Naruto mutters from under the pillow and throws his other arm over it as well.

“Don’t be a sore loser. Sakura won fair and square.” A boy who looks like Gai’s miniature clone tells Naruto with a slight scowl, pulling the pillow off of his face with little difficulty. 

Naruto gets over himself soon enough, brushing off his shirt as he bounces to his feet. “I guess that’s okay! After all,  _ my  _ pumpkin beat Sakura’s in the competition at the festival.” He grins, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

“You didn’t beat Sasuke’s though.” Ino fires back, standing up for her friend.

“Still beat Saukra’s!” Naruto drawls, putting his hands behind his head. 

“Okay, okay!” Rin calls out in a sing-song voice. “Let's continue this after we eat, I’m hungry!” She pushes herself off of the bed and grabs both Sakura and Naruto’s hands with her own and leads them out, the other kids following her like a row of ducklings. 

The rest of them also get up and begin to walk out as well. Halfway down the hall, Kakashi, who was in front of him, freezes, stopping Iruka and the two people behind them in their tracks. Iruka smacks his nose into Kakashi’s back and jumps back, hissing at the pain while rubbing at his nose.

“A little warning next time would be nice.” He snaps, glaring at the taller boy. Genma and Obito, who are behind him, peak over his shoulders to try and see what was going on. The stretch of hallway here was very tight, the only opening a small corridor with a door that led to the backyard.

“Oi, Hatake! Get a move on! You’re stopping traffic.” Genma complains, reaching over Iruka’s shoulder to try and push him forwards.

Kakashi doesn’t budge an inch, and Iruka frowns. Something about him seemed off. Kakashi was usually always very aware of his surroundings, he should have responded to that push at least somehow.

“Bakashi?” Obito’s voice sounds strangely strained, and Genma soon picks up on whatever is bothering Obito.

“Hey Kashi?” Genma tries, using the nickname that Iruka knows Kakashi hates. Kakashi doesn’t give any indication that he even heard him, still standing perfectly still.

“Hey Iruka? Try to push him away from the corridor, yeah? I don’t want him to go outside right now.” Obito commands in a soft voice that does little to hide the panic that’s lacing his tone.

Iruka doesn’t hesitate much.  _ This is for leaving me alone last night.  _ He thinks to himself before pushing at Kakashi with as much strength as he can muster, bracing himself to stumble forwards when Kakashi moves. 

Kakashi doesn’t move forward. 

Instead, he turns towards the corridor and walks out of the house before any of them can process what had happened.

“Oh  _ shit.”  _ Obito hisses, forcing his way past Genma and Iruka and running towards his brother, who was already walking into the woods that occupied their backyard. Iruka and Genma chase after him, trying not to be left behind. Obito was  _ fast.  _

Unfortunately, he wasn’t as fast as Kakashi, and the silver haired boy ducks into the trees before Obito can even get halfway across the yard. He doesn’t hesitate following him through, pushing through the trees and bushes as he tries to reach his brother. Genma falters only for a split second at the boundary separating the yard for the forest and Iruka is dragged in by default since he had been holding onto the sleeve of Genma’s jacket.

They manage to catch up to Obito, who is skillfully making his way through the foliage, not a single branch hitting him. The same can’t be said for Iruka and Genma, who are getting mouthfuls of leaves left and right. Iruka tightens his grasp on Genma’s yellow jacket and Gema reaches out to grab Obito’s own dark blue one.

“Don’t let go of me.” He warns in a soft whisper, and Iruka decides against telling him that he’d have to be crazy to even think that Iruka would ever even consider letting go. Now was probably not the time for sarcasm. 

The full moon rises higher into the sky, the too white light softly illuminating parts of the woods that Iruka does not want to see. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end as he tries not to look up at the moon, keeping his eyes focused on Genma’s back as they make their way through the thick woods. 

“Don’t stare at the moon for too long.” Genma mutters, noticing how Iruka’s eyes keep shifting upwards. “It doesn't like to be watched, that’s its job not yours.” he tells him cryptically when Iruka sends him a questioning glance. Iruka doesn’t try to get more information out of him now, he doesn’t think talking more than he should is wise at the moment.

The moon's light avoids shining on them, always shifting to stay out of their path. Iruka doesn’t know if he should be grateful for this, but just keeps on staring at Genma’s back. 

_ Don’t look at the moon. Don’t look at the moon. Don’t look at the moon. _

_ Don’t look at the moon. _

He repeats the mantra in his head, wondering if he should just screw his eyes shut and just hope that wherever Obito and Genma are going is safe. He’d never actually do that, his trust issues are too big, but the thought does cross his mind once or twice.

The gnarled branches are growing thicker, reaching out towards him like outstretched hands and the three of them take great care not to come in contact with them. The branches seem to inch their way towards them, straining to grab a hold of them but they make sure to stay out of their way.

After all, there aren’t that many things that the forests take that they give back. 

Iruka can hear the slight fluttering of wings and the muted cawing of the crows that are following them, darting through the branches like an obstacle course. Iruka doesn’t look up at them; he’s learned his lesson well enough. Don’t look at the crows and they can’t bother you. Genma and Obito keep their eyes trained ahead, trying to keep up with the silver speck in the distance that is Kakashi.

Something wraps around Iruka’s leg and he stumbles, falling to the ground. Both Obito and Genma are immediately at his side, pulling him up before his entire body hits the ground. Iruka starts to look for what tripped him but Obito grabs his face by his chin and makes him look into his eyes. “Never turn around to check behind you.” He tells him in a whisper, just loud enough for Iruka to hear. “Once you start, you won’t be able to stop. You’ll go crazy looking for something that doesn’t even exist.” The way he says it, grim and heavy, tells Iruka that he’s not joking and he swallows hard and nods, not trusting himself to speak.

Obito turns around and notices that Kakashi had disappeared from sight and lets out a curse, before flinching and covering his mouth, fingers sealed tightly over his lips. Genma shifts nervously and gnaws on his own lips, ripping at the dead skin. For a moment, the woods go silent and the moon’s light fades out, leaving them in absolute darkness. Iruka’s grip on Genma’s arm strengthens, and he edges closer to him as he struggles to see in the pitch black world around him. There’s a pressure building in his sinuses, growing heavier and heavier until all he can hear is the roar of blood in his ears and his chest beating erratically in his chest. The darkness seems to send him spiraling, deeper and deeper until his head is spinning and he feels his sense of balance teetering. 

Then Obito breaks the silence with one word.

“Run.”

Something snaps, both in Iruka and in the forest around him, and he takes off with Genma and Obito holding on to each other, while the woods let out a groan and seem to shift, almost like coming alive.

When Iruka sees a tree’s root rise up in an attempt to trip them, he  _ knows  _ it’s alive. The crows get louder, bolder, and he can feel the tips of their wings on his exposed face and the sharpness of their talons brushing against his back.

Their screaming gets louder, and soon that’s not the only noise that suddenly fills Iruka’s hearing. A low hum fills the air, a sound he recognizes as the tune Rin was first humming when he met her in the woods with Naruto weeks ago, and he feels his blood turn cold. The sound is loud and invasive, crawling through his ears and settling in his heart, weighing him down and making his legs feel like jelly. It circles at the back of his neck, raising goosebumps onto his skin and pressing fear into his bones. His lungs are on fire, they’re screaming in protest, begging him to slow down, to stop. He ignores them, focusing on keeping his legs moving. His breathing is becoming erratic, but based on the sounds of Genma and Obito’s breathing, he’s not the only one struggling. 

If they can keep going, then so can he. 

The wind increases in strength, its cold air pushing through his esophagus and into his lungs, freezing them and making it painful to breath. It pushes harder, and it feels like he’s trying to push against a brick wall. He’s not even sure if they’re moving anymore, they could be running in place for all he knows.

The wind howls, blocking out the humming of the forest, just for a moment, and they’re able to break free and continue down what Iruka hopes is the right path. They brush past something on the way down and Iruka feels static in the air around him, feels his hair stand on end. There are shivers traveling up and down his spine, the kind that make it hard to focus on anything else. 

Obito is still dragging them forwards, and Iruka thinks he might be the only reason why they’re still moving, though he isn’t too sure. He has no idea if he’d be dead or alive if he wandered in here alone, so he chooses to believe that somehow the number of people with him is keeping him safe.

He hopes that Kakashi is okay. He was by himself. Anxiousness wraps around his heart like a noose, and he shakes his head in an attempt to clear his already foggy brain. Now wasn’t the time to think about death. He couldn’t afford it. 

When Obito comes to a sharp stop, both Genma and Iruka smack into him. They both open their mouths to snap at him before clamping them shut, and look over his shoulder to see what had stopped Obito . On the ground below them, millions of beetles are scuttling around in thick swarms, completely covering the ground.

“We have to avoid stepping on them.” Genma mutters to Obito, who nods and begins inching his way to the left and carefully steps onto an elevated tree root.

Genma begins to follow in suit, but not before leaning over to Iruka and whispering “Don’t step on any beetle, or you’ll never be able to get rid of them.” He then mimics Obito’s actions and begins slowly walking on the elevated roots, avoiding the beatles on the ground underneath them.

_ One misstep and it’s over for you.  _ Iruka thinks to himself as he unsteadily grips the trunk of the tree and steps onto the thankfully thick roots. He doesn’t let himself think about the beatles, just going through the motions of  _ step, secure, move  _ over and over again. As he nears the end, he can see the bugs already thinning out, and he lets out a shaky breath and hops down to safety next to Genma and Obito, who were waiting for him.

They all let out a collective, shaky breath, eyes still shifting around nervously for anything harmful. Iruka notices that Obito moves so that Gema is on his left side and suddenly he remembers that Obito is blind in one eye. This whole thing must have been 10 times more terrifying with his line of vision severed in half. 

It also makes Iruka wonder why himself and Genma thought it was a good idea to let him be the one who was keeping an eye on Kakashi. He doesn’t mean anything rude by it, but if they were trying to find someone and they let the halfblind person do the actual looking, then they shouldn’t even be surprised that they were in this mess.

Obito looks up at Iruka with a cool expression, as if he had just read his mind. “I’ll have you know I have  _ excellent _ hearing, way better than yours and Genma’s combined.” He tells him loftily and Iruka’s face burns in embarrassment but Obito waves him off when he tries to apologize. 

“It makes sense to worry about that.” He assures him, before his head tilts slightly to one side and he shuts his eyes. Genma brings one finger to his lips, signaling for Iruka to not make any noise while Obito listens and Iruka scowls at him and tries to communicate that while he may be a bit of an asshole at the moment, he wasn’t an idiot. Genma just shrugs and tears another thin layer of skin off his lip. By the time they get home, he’ll be bleeding like crazy from his mouth.

If they get home.

He quickly pushes that thought aside as Obito begins to move forwards as quietly as possible, gesturing for them to follow. They walk in silence for what feels like hours before they reach a clearing in the middle of the woods.

They hover at the border, looking out into the clearing and zeroing in on a thick slab of stone that sits in the middle of it. The slab is probably five feet tall and 6 feet wide, judging from where he was standing. The moonlight shone softly in the clearing, most of its light pouring onto the middle of the rock.

When Iruka notices just what, or  _ who,  _ was laying on the rock, he feels his chest stutter to a stop. Obito and Genma inhale sharply, before all three of them are quickly making their way to where Kakashi is laying on the slab of rock.

He’s so still, that for a moment Iruka thinks he might be dead. His skin was bathed in pale moonlight and not even his eyes were moving behind his closed eyelids. If it wasn’t for the slow rise and fall of his chest, Iruka might have dropped dead himself just then and there.

“Kakashi.” Obito mutters gently, reaching across the rock and shaking his shoulder lightly, trying to wake him. Kakashi’s head just lolls to the side limply, still unconscious. Obito tries again, but gets the same result. Genma actually climbs onto the rock and crawls over to him and tries grabbing his mask to see if that would wake him, but doesn’t actually pull it down. He knows that if Kakashi didn’t wake up from feeling his mask touched, then he wouldn't wake up when it was removed and he respects his boundaries too much to do that.

The two of them spend a few minutes trying to wake Kakashi, with no headway. He was still laying limply in the middle of the stone, head tilted back and his throat exposed. Obito has tears running out of his real eye, and he doesn’t put in any effort to wipe them away.

Kakashi had always fondly called him “Crybaby.” 

Genma pauses to try and console Obito but he just shakes his head and pulls himself up onto the rock and crawls over to where Kakashi was laying. He gently slaps his brother's face, but gets nothing in response.

Iruka finally shakes himself out of his own stupor and follows Obito and Genma up the rock and he grabs both of Kakashi’s shoulders and shakes him  _ hard.  _

There was none of the gentleness that Obito and Genma had displayed. Iruka was desperate. He needed him to wake up, but he was also angry at him from before. He needed Kakashi to wake up so that he could apologize or  _ something.  _ Roll his eyes at him. Anything.

Obito grabs his own arms, whispering vehemently for him to be more careful, but that just makes Iruka thrust his arms even harder. Kakashi’s head nods back, hitting the stone with each shake that Iruka is giving him. Iruka can feel the pressure build behind his own eyes and can feel his nose start to get runny, a tell tale sign that he’s going to start crying soon and for once he doesn’t try to stop his tears from flowing freely.

He grabs Kakashi by the collar of his shirt and jerks him up until he’s only inches from his face.

“Wake up, asshole.” Iruka practically begs as tears drip down his cheeks. For once, Iruka was in a higher position than Kakashi,  _ he  _ was the one who got to look down at him, but all he got was an unresponsive loll of the head and an arm limply falling back when Iruka shifted his hold on him. 

He can feel Genma and Obito’s presence behind him and he knows he doesn’t have the right to hold Kakashi like this when his  _ brother  _ and close friend were right there, but he’s so cold and his breathing is so slow that all Iruka can do is pull him close and tuck his head under his chin, letting his tears slip onto Kakashi’s own face.

Then he feels the body in his arms stiffen, before pressing closer to his neck. He frowns at the familiar movement, and begins to pull away from Kakashi just as he jumps back, like he was shocked.

Iruka is quick to rub away his tears and plaster an annoyed expression on his face. “What the hell are you doing here? Do you even know where you are?” He demands, now that the worry is gone selfish anger takes its place. Anger that Kakashi would do something so stupid and endanger himself. Anger that no matter what happened, everyone would laugh it off as something stupid. Anger that he didn’t know what was wrong with his friend but he wouldn’t tell him how to help him.

Instead of snapping back like Iruka expects him too, Kakashi takes one look around him before shrinking back into himself, body trembling like a leaf in the wind. Immediately, Iruka’s anger melts away and he reaches out for him, and he can see Genma and Obito doing the same.

Kakashi doesn’t give them a chance though. He springs back up and takes off back into the woods, and the three of them start to run after him when suddenly a large white wolf that didn’t seem all the way tangible bars their path. It’s black eyes bore into them and it bares its teeth.

_ Go home, little humans. While you still have the chance. _ Its voice echoes in Iruka’s ears, echoing around in his mind. He grips his head, and he can see that Obito and Genma had a similar reaction.

The wolf snarls again and runs towards them, and Iruka shuts his eyes, waiting for the worst.

~

When he opens his eyes, he’s standing in Kakashi’s backyard, head still being cradled by his hands. When he looks up, Genma and Obito are doing the same.

He feels a memory start to pull to the surface, one with school halls, a janitorial closet, and a cornfield, but it freezes halfway through and comes to a halt. He doesn’t bother thinking about it now, he just makes eye contact with Genma and Obito and the three of them sprint towards the house and throw open the backdoor and run inside. 

They move towards the kitchen where their parents are before they hear a quiet noise and they turn on their heels and make their way towards Kakashi’s room. Holding their breaths, they creak open the door and see Kakashi sitting on his bed, head in his hands.

He jerks his head up when he hears the door open and Iruka can see that his eyes are wet. He reaches out, but Kakashi doesn’t give them a chance to do anything.

“Get. Out.” He snarls, eyes narrowing as he glares at them with all the strength his tired eyes can muster and Obito sighs and tells them to leave, whispering for Genma to get Hashirama and Madara when they go to the living room.

Once Genma does, they don’t appear again for the rest of the night.

When they leave that night, Iruka doesn’t hear Naruto chatting happily about the candy he won in the games, how TenTen beat Neji at UNO even though he said he was the best, or how all of his friends drew markings on their face to match his scars so he wouldn’t feel left out.

All he can hear is the deafening silence from the forest around him; and that was more nerve wracking than all the noises that forest had produced beforehand. He knows the forest made a decision tonight.

Good or bad, the forest was definite. It made sure that what it required was given, and if it wasn’t given, it was taken.

The wind swirls gently around Iruka, pulling his hair up and down, in any direction that it wanted. Iruka stops trying to control his hair and just lets the wind have its way, surrendering to what it wants. If the wind is happy with his decision, it doesn’t say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bro comment rn i need validation 🔫 (if you want to!!)


	8. eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uhhhh i have four science finals soon so ofc i wrote this chapter instead😌
> 
> i hope you like it ! i personally like this one a lot, but it isnt edited so . it could probably flow a lot better but oh well i have 4 finals to study for<3
> 
> also tysm for the comments on the last chapter they were so nice ily🥺🧡

The thick snow crunches loudly underneath his boots as he marches towards the tall brick school building, shoulders braced. Grabbing the door handle tightly, he swings open the door with as much strength as possible and strides into the building, scanning the hallways. Distantly, he can hear the people behind him complaining that the door had dumped snow on their heads and that it was his fault, but he was too worked up to notice.

He scours the room, keeping a sharp eye out for dark hair and obnoxious color choices. He doesn’t have to wait long to spot his targets.

“YOU!” His voice echoes throughout the hallways and everyone stops and stares at him like he had lost his mind. Which was quite convenient because he might have. The party of two that he’s pointing at freeze up before slowly turning and smiling sheepishly at him, bodies hunching over.

“Hey Iruka!” Genma greets warily with a small wave just as Obito suddenly becomes extremely fascinated with the lint he found in his orange snow suit pocket. 

“Don’t ‘hey Iruka’ me.” Iruka snaps as he stomps over to them, arms crossed over his chest as he glares at them over his glasses that were once again slipping down his nose. He watches Genma’s expression get more and more nervous and how he’s flicking his not-sebon between his teeth much more erratically than usual. Obito is still staring at the lint in his hand, not acknowledging Iruka but not ignoring him either, if the hunch in his shoulders says anything. “You two have some  _ explaining  _ to do. And don’t try to deny your way out of it this time.”

Genma lets out a nervous laugh and reaches up with his left hand and tugs at a strand of brown hair, letting the dark strands wrap around his fingers. Obito rubs at the back of his neck, similar to what Naruto did when he was nervous. Iruka lets out a loud huff and grabs both of their free hands and drags them into an empty classroom. School didn’t start for another fifteen minutes, so they had time.

Iruka had made sure of it.

“So,” He smiles sweetly and sits down in one of the empty desks, gesturing for both of them to sit as well, “Where should we start?” He folds his hands on the desk in front of him and leans forward.

Obito looks up at Iruka for the first time this morning, and his eyes are serious. As serious as they had been when he had noticed something was wrong with Kakashi that night. Obito was never serious. 

“Iruka. This isn’t a joke. We can’t tell anyone anything about Them. Someone could die. Someone  _ will  _ die.” His voice is flat, like he’s trying to keep an emotion from overtaking his words.

Iruka blinks at him, face blank and falls back in his chair. “What the fuck is that supossed to mean?”

  
Obito flinches and screws his eyes shut, turning his face away and Genma places a hand gently onto his shoulder, before turning his attention to Iruka. “Exactly what he said, ‘Ruka. We can’t say anything important or someone will. Uh.” He slides his index finger over his throat, imitating someone dying.

Eyes tracing Genma’s action, Iruka frowns and shakes his head with a scoff. “That doesn’t even make any sense. Who would kill you, the wolf?-” he stops speaking, eyes growing wide as he mulls over the information presented to him and starts sliding pieces together. “The forest here doesn't like people.” He says out loud, to himself. “That’s why weird things happen when you’re in them.” he snaps his head up and looks at Genma and Obito.

“Who dies?”

Obito’s right side twitches and Genma lets out a harsh laugh. “Like we know. How the hell are we supposed to know what the nature spi-” Obito’s hand clamps over his mouth and he shakes his head vigorously. 

“We’re out of strikes, Gen. We can’t keep slipping up like that.” He says, voice downcast. He still hasn’t looked Iruka in the eyes. “I’m sorry, but we can’t tell you anything else. You’ve seen what this place is like. If you want to stay angry with us, that’s fine but we can’t have another person die.” His good eye is watering and Iruka feels his heart clench in his chest. This wasn’t how he had intended this confrontation to go; he had just wanted some answers. 

“Hey, Obito.” He says softly, reaching over and pulling the shorter boy into a tight hug, gripping his arms tightly. “I’m sorry I made you cry. I won’t bring this up again. I now have a pretty good idea of everything anyways. I’m sorry for cornering you like this, you too Genma. That wasn’t fair of me. I was mad so I didn’t think this through.”

“It’s fine.” Genma waves him off, though he keeps his other hand firmly on Obito’s shoulder. “It’s not like you could have known. Not your fault either.” He laughs softly, but Iruka can hear the tight anxiousness behind his voice. 

“I’m still sorry.” Iruka tells them quietly, ignoring how his side is starting to cramp up from the weird position he’s hugging Obito in. 

Obito lets out a watery laugh and shakes his head. “Sorry, sorry. I just get a little worked up sometimes. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.”

He has to pry himself out of Iruka’s grip, muttering something about inhuman strength as he tries to peel off Iruka’s arms. Iruka lets go, plastering a smile onto his face when Obito turns to him with a carefully schooled expression. “Well! I still have that appointment with Tsunade that I was supposed to have before school started today. I need to go before she decides to throw me out of a window or something. Later!” He does a two fingered salute and walks lazily out of the room, letting the door slam behind him.

“If he’s related to her, why doesn’t he just, I don’t know, just call her or something?” Iruka mutters, staring at the door.

Genma fixes him with a disbelieving stare. “You’re joking right? Do we know the same Tsunade?”

“Okay that’s fair.” Iruka agrees, thinking about their AP Art History teacher and just how ready she was to stop teaching every single day. If Obito tried calling her about school outside of class hours, she’d probably chuck her phone out of her window to avoid discussing grades and whatnot. It would be pretty funny though, maybe he’d try and convince Obito to do that later on. Maybe during winter break.

He hears the desk next to him squeak as Genma pushes back and slides out, gesturing towards the door. “Class starts in five minutes, and my first period is on the other side of the building. Ciao!” He singsongs before slipping out of the door, glancing back to wink at Iruka, who just sighs and pulls himself out of the desk and follows Genma out the door.

His phone’s alarm rings and he pulls it out of his pocket.  _ Class in five minutes!!!!!  _ Is plastered in black letters onto the screen and he quickly shuts it and hurries towards his first period. He had been getting to class pretty late these last few days and his teacher was starting to get fed up. 

Just as he rounds the corner, he spots a familiar shock of white hair walking past his classroom and he freezes up, staring at Kakashi as he moves with his head down, eyes trained onto the floor.

“K. Kakashi!” Iruka stammers awkwardly, trying to get his attention so that he can ask him if he was okay. He hadn’t gotten the chance that night.

Kakashi looks up, eyes blank, and it’s as though he’s looking right through Iruka. He doesn’t even blink as he starts walking past Iruka and he can feel a familiar spark of irritation in his chest as he watches Kakashi try and slip past him.

He’s reaching out and grabbing Kakashi’s arm before he even registers what he’s doing, but he doesn’t let go. He keeps gripping it tightly, fingers scrunching up the smooth black fabric of his winter coat. 

Kakashi stops right next to Iruka, motionless. 

His heart is beating so loudly that Iruka is scared that Kakashi can hear it. He bites the insides of his mouth, trying to come up with something to say. His traitorous mind comes up blank, and he’s stuck opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.

“Iruka.” Kakashi murmurs lowly, eyes sliding to the right so that he can look at him without turning his head. “Get to class.” He reaches over and detaches Iruka’s fingers one by one and places his hand at his side in a fluid, gentle movement and then continues walking past Iruka, not looking back once. 

Iruka knows this because he watched Kakashi until he turned the corner, disappearing from view. The bell rings above him, loud and shrill and he hurriedly throws open the door to his first period and apologizes to his very unimpressed teacher who tells him to hurry up and get his materials out.

-

“All right, that’s the bell! I legally don’t have to teach any of you for the rest of the day. I’m behind on grading your last homework assignment so you guys are getting none from me today, you’re welcome. Now shoo! Get out of my sight!” Tsunade is practically  _ glowing,  _ just like she always is when school is over and Iruka is once again stuck wondering why the hell Tsunade had become a teacher.

“She says that like she wasn’t out clubbing until like four in the morning all weekend.” Obito mutters in Iruka’s ear as he walks out, grinning sunnily and blows a kiss at Tsunade as she glares at him and tells him that she heard that. 

Iruka see’s a vein begin to pulse on her forehead, and briefly wonders if today was the day that he’d get to watch his teacher throw Obito out of the window. That would be ten times more interesting than throwing her phone out the window. 

Unfortunately for Iruka and fortunately for Obito, he’s able to slip past her and race down the hallway, his laughter trailing behind him, though Tsunade’s quiet string of curses drown him out pretty well. 

She looks up and sees him still sitting at his desk, slowly shoving his things in his backpack. “What the hell are you still doing here, brat?” She asks, but there’s not any irritation in her voice. Okay maybe there was a little, but that was pretty good, for her.

Iruka looks up sheepishly at her, before his eyes dart back to where Kakashi’s empty seat was. He hadn’t come to class today. Her eyes follow the direction of his gaze, and if he was paying any attention he would have seen how her eyes softened just a bit. She doesn’t comment on it, just tells him to hurry up and get home, and he nods wordlessly and hurries out the door towards the school exit.

He pulls his thick jacket closer to his body as he steps out of the building and into the parking lot. 

As he starts making his way to where Genma and his car were waiting, he feels something cold land on his nose and he freezes in his tracks. Looking up at the sky, he watches as hundreds of small white flurries make their way down from the thick grey clouds above. A few land on the lens of his glasses and he strains his eyes trying to see the intricate patterns that each one has.

This was his first time experiencing snow. Sure, when he had woken up this morning the world had been covered in a fine sheet of white, but he had been half dead and in a rush to get to school so he hadn’t been able to admire it properly. Now, he could stay here and stare at the sky for hours. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life. He inhales deeply, relishing in the way the icy air burns at his airways and clears his sinuses.

“Hey Iruka! You coming?” He whips his head and sees Genma’s upper half poking out of the window of his car.

“No, I’ll leave with my mom!” He calls back, not quite ready to leave the snow.

“Okay, if you’re that eager to freeze your ass off, be my guest!” Genma yells, shrugging his shoulders before shoving his torso back into his car and he pulls out of the parking lot with one final wave to Iruka.

Shutting his eyes, Iruka lets himself enjoy the feeling of having snowflakes fall onto his face. He’d go back inside and wait for his mom in a bit, but he wanted to remember this moment, so he was going to do his best to savor it. 

The snowflakes begin landing on his neck and he cracks open an eye, watching the wind playfully push the snowflakes around as they fall to the ground. It was nice to not have the wind’s attention on him, he thinks to himself as he stares at the dark grey sky above him.

Apparently, speaking too soon was a talent of his because once the speed that the snowflakes hit him increased about ten times, he realizes that the wind was creating a vortex of snow around him and his breath quickens as he tries to think of a way out of this situation.

_ Why didn’t you just leave with Genma. Stupid bitch.  _ He hisses at himself, looking wildly around him. This was not what he needed today. What he needed was a five hour nap and maybe some ramen if he managed to wake up before 9 P.M.. A surge of irritation runs through his chest and he throws his arms up in exasperation.

“What do you want with me! Can’t you leave me alone for even a second? I’m tired of you dragging me around everywhere!” he screams at the wind, hoping that no one could see him right now. They’d probably admit him to a mental institution or something.

The wind caresses his chin, pulling at loose strands of hair and Iruka stubbornly tucks them behind his ears, glaring at the sky as he does so. The wind doesn’t seem to like that, as it pulls even harder at his hair. A whole chunk of his ponytail comes free and Iruka lets out a shrill noise that was a little too close to a chicken squawking for his liking. 

The whirling of the snow gets stronger, until it looks like he’s caught in a blizzard. Teeth chattering, he wraps his arms around himself tightly and hunches over, trying to peer through the thick flurries of snow. His vision starts to spin, matching the movement of the swirls of snow and he loses his balance. He squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself for his inevitable contact with the asphalt he was standing on. 

_ Maybe  _ ** _I’m _ ** _ the bitch that’s gonna die from learning about the forest. Dying by falling and splitting my head open in a parking lot. Classy.  _

And makes contact with a soft, deep bank of snow. Blinking warily, he takes in his surroundings. 

There were thick pine trees towering above him, their deep green leaves dusted with a light layer of white snow. They stayed firm against the wind that swirled playfully around them, not bending to its will. The world around him was covered in a thick blanket of snow so deep that while sitting in it it reached halfway up his torso. 

Shaking, he pulls himself upright and brushes powdery snow off of himself, thanking whatever was out there that his glasses didn’t fall off of his face as he was teleported. 

He freezes. He was teleported. Again. He groans and falls back onto the snow, sinking into the cold powder once again. He screws his eyes shut and slaps his palms over his eyes. How the hell was he supposed to get home this time?

He feels his hair being pulled and he splays his fingers apart so that he can see through his hands. The wind tugs a little harder, and he hisses and swats at it. “Alright, I’ll follow you. It’s not like I have anything better to do. But stop pulling my hair out of my ponytail though, okay? That shit’s not funny.” His hair drops onto his face and he lets out a disbelieving snort, but gets up and lets the wind push him in whatever direction it wants him to go as he redoes his hair. 

It pushes him through the thick pine trees, and Iruka reaches out and lets his fingers run against the rough bark of the trees. The smell of pine here is so strong that he can’t even smell the snow anymore, and he stops trying.

As they make their way through the woods, the wind starts pointing out things that Iruka would never have noticed before. A slight tilt to his left and he sees a small  chickadee hopping around on the ground, too light to sink in the snow. Its round eyes focus on Iruka and it chirps cheerfully before spreading its wings and flying up to the tallest branch of a tree.

A shift to his right and he sees a dark grey bobcat slinking through the shadows. It tenses when it spots him, but the wind shifts, moving leaves with it and the bobcat dips its head in acknowledgement and does not pay Iruka any mind. It bounds off towards a pile of snow covered rocks that look way too slippery for a human to safely climb.

A pressure to his chin that makes him look up shows him a single cardinal flitting through the sky, its bright red color standing out in the pale white world that the snow had painted. To its left, a blue jay squawks at him before dive bombing at him. The wind catches the bird before it hits Iruka, and the bird lets out a quiet huff before flying back to its perch. 

Behind him, a small grey fox scampers past, chasing something that’s just out of Iruka’s line of sight. They keep walking like this, and soon Iruka loses all track of time. He’s finally coming to terms with the fact that the wind might force him to walk forever when it suddenly stops dead in its tracks and Iruka stumbles forward.

Just as he’s about to complain, his eyes land on an individual sitting by a frozen over pond in a small clearing. Bone white hair, dark black winter coat, even darker mask, it could only be one person.

“Kakashi.” He breathes, all thoughts of what Obito and Genma had told him earlier disappearing from his mind, quickening his pace as the wind swirls behind him, as if to tell him “I told you it would be worth it, didn’t I?” He rolls his eyes at the wind and shakes his head. As he gets closer to the other, he slows, trying to come up with a plausible reason he was here. Just as he opens his mouth, Kakashi cuts him off.

“I just can’t seem to shake you off, huh?” His voice is low, and laced with amusement and something bitter and sad. He hadn’t turned around, so Iruka supposes that he had heard him. Not that he had made much noise, mind you.

“If that was your goal, you’re gonna have to try harder than that.” Iruka quips lightly as he sits next to Kakashi, looking over at the other boy.

His eyes are still trained onto the frozen pond, eyes almost as glassed over as the ice he’s staring at. “I’m pretty lazy, so I guess you’ll have to stay.” Kakashi says, voice wistful as he continues to look at the frozen body of water. His knees are close to his chest and his arms are wrapped around them. Sitting like this, he seems so small to Iruka. His chest clenches and he shifts a bit closer to Kakashi. 

“How-” His voice gives out and he swallows hard and tries again. “How are you? You seemed a bit shaken up last time I saw you.” He looks at Kakashi earnestly, trying to force the other to look at him with just his gaze. 

Kakashi doesn’t give him the satisfaction, and he doesn’t answer Iruka’s question either. “Look over there, at those snowdrops.” He says softy, pointing at the other side of the small pond. 

It takes a moment for Iruka to spot them, their white color not doing anything to help locate them. “They’re very pretty.” Iruka tells him politely, though he can’t see them well. He’s sure they look absolutely lovely up close. 

“They’re poisonous to eat. They can cause dizziness, nausea, and even death sometimes.” Kakashi tells him bluntly and Iruka raises his eyebrows, wondering if Kakashi planned to force feed him a bunch of snowdrops. 

“However,” Kakashi continues in the same deadpan voice, “if used externally, they can be used as a remedy for frostbite.”

“That’s...nice.” Iruka settles for that word, wondering just what the hell Kakashi expected him to say to that. 

“It is.” Kakashi agrees, still staring at the pond. 

Iruka glances over at the pond, wondering just what was so fucking fasinating about frozen water. A quick look confirms what he had already thought; there was literally nothing there and the only way you could sit there for hours and stare at it was if you just straight up didn’t have a functioning thought process. 

“It’s interesting how one thing can be deadly to one person but a lifesaver to another.” Kakashi comments again, a note of longing in his voice. Iruka glances back up at him, wondering if he missed the social cue that told him they were switching topics.

“It’s just a small flower, one in a million, but it has so much power in it. Power that someone wouldn’t even notice unless they had the right kind of training.” Kakashi continues on, gazing lifting from the pond to the snowdrops.

Iruka coughs quietly and nods, not sure what to say to that. They sit in silence for what could have been either thirty seconds or thirty minutes, but finally Kakashi turns towards Iruka and pins him with his gaze. 

“If one died and was replaced with another one, that takes its place, would you notice? Or would you just continue on with your life like nothing happened?” His voice is flat, or maybe nonchalant, but his eyes are wide rimmed and his shoulders are tense. Iruka leans back as Kakashi leans forward ever so slightly.

“I mean. It’s a flower so-” he notices how Kakashi deflates and he hurries to fix what he said. “So of course I’d notice! Most flowers don’t look exactly identical and they’ll never be the exact same as the once before it. Just because it takes its place doesn’t mean the presence of the other one is entirely erased. Um, the soil would be less fertile there because the previous flower would have sucked it all up. So the earth and the new flower will both remember it! Yeah..” He nods to himself, trying to make sense of what he just said. He hopes it was accurate, but he hadn’t paid much attention to biology in freshman year. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter if what he said was biologically accurate or anything because Kakashi lets out a quiet sigh and tilts his head back, looking at the grey sky calmly. Iruka is struck with the suspicion that they weren’t actually talking about flowers and that Kakashi had used him for an impromptu therapy session, but he won’t say anything about it. 

He glances down at Kakashi’s bare hands that are resting in the snow and counts the rings his has on his fingers. Five total on the hand he can see, a combination of normal thin silver rings and a few that only go halfway down his fingers. They look nice, Iruka thinks to himself as he looks at them. He briefly remembers Kakashi telling him that they were his mothers.

Kakashi’s hand disappears from Iruka’s line of vision as the other boy stands up and stretches, before looking down at Iruka. “C’mon. I’ll walk you home.” He tells him lazily, gesturing towards the woods with a tilt of his head. 

Iruka’s face burns red. “I can walk home by myself.” he snaps, jumping to his feet. 

Kakashi’s eyes turn up in what Iruka has come to associate with him smiling, and nods. “I know, but I want to walk with you.” He pauses for a minute before quickly adding “Because walking alone can be boring. I hate it when things are boring.”

Iruka looks pointedly at the frozen pond. “Right… No boring stuff for you.”

Kakashi tilts his head. “What’s boring about the pond?”

“...Nothing.” 

“Don’t make fun of the pond, it might get sad and tell the wind, and the wind is very protective of its pond.” Kakashi teases him lightly, and Iruka can’t figure out if he’s being serious or not.

They start walking back when Iruka’s foot slips on a hidden rock and he starts to fall, but Kakashi grabs his hand and hauls him upright. When Iruka manages to stabilize himself, Kakashi doesn’t let go. He just shrugs and tells him this way Iruka can’t fall and break his nose on anything.

Iruka doesn’t have the heart to tell him that his mask can’t completely mask the pink blush rising around Kakashi’s cheeks.

-

The sun is just starting to set when they make their way up Iruka’s driveway and climb up the stairs to the front porch, the pale pinks and reds barely shining through the thick grey clouds that were still hanging over the earth around them. 

“Well, this is my house.” Iruka says airily, glancing down to his hand that was still entwined with Kakashi’s. The blush that Kakashi had gotten under control with little difficulty back that the clearing comes back with a vengeance, the dark pink blooming on the apples of his cheeks and spreading from there. 

Iruka’s in no position to laugh, judging from the burning sensation he can feel on his own cheeks. They both stare at their hands, as if trying to figure out what the fuck they were supposed to do with them.

They never found the solution; Naruto threw it at their faces. The door swings open violently and a high pitched voice echoes loud enough for all their neighbors to hear; “HEY! STOP SEXUALLY HARASSING MY BROTHER. CREEP.” Naruto then proceeded to rip their hands apart and stands in between them, glaring up at Kakashi with his little arms folded across his chest.

Kakashi’s eyes widened so wide that Iruka would have been laughing at him for weeks, had he not been so utterly mortified. 

“Naruto! Don’t say things like that!” Iruka hisses, tugging at a strand of Naruto’s hair, just as Kakashi stammers an apology and a hasty goodbye and turns on his heel and walks down the stairs and down the driveway.

About halfway down, he turns halfway and offers a small wave. Iruka grins brightly and waves back enthusiastically until Kakashi turns and keeps walking home.

They stay there in silence, until Kakashi melts from view and Naruto eyes Iruka.

“You know… You could do so much better than him.” 

Iruka doesn’t say anything, he just reaches over and smacks Naruto over the head before turning around and walking inside. Naruto follows close behind, shutting the door and locking it after him.

Minato and Kushina are sitting on the couch, trying their best to look like they weren’t just staring out the window and failing spectacularly. 

“SO,” Kushina begins, jumping up and fixing him with a wide grin. “I was  _ going  _ to yell at you for not telling me where you were all this time and not answering my calls and texts, but I’m willing to make an exception this time. I wanna know-”

“When are we getting to officially meet him?” Minato asks, mouth curling up slyly as he watches his oldest son squirm underneath his gaze.

“Not you guys too!” Iruka’s chicken noise from before makes a comeback and he runs up the stairs, telling them that they’d meet Kakashi someday (never).

He quickly showers, brushes his teeth, goes through his 12 step facial routine, puts on his pajamas, and crawls into bed. It’s only 9 P.M., but he’s so exhausted that he doesn’t spend an hour aimlessly scrolling through his phone, he just lays down and waits for sleep to overtake him.

About thirty minutes later, his door creaks open and Naruto tiptoes in, dragging his orange comforter with him. He slams the door shut, which makes all of his tiptoeing worthless but he doesn't seem to realize that, and crawls into Iruka’s bed, curling into his chest.

Iruka lets out a quiet sigh and wraps an arm around his baby brother and lets himself fall asleep. 

He had wanted to sleep the whole night through, but a quiet creaking noise woke him up. He blearily looks around, eyes falling on his alarm clock. The numbers read “1:46” and he groans softly before opening his mouth to complain to Naruto about leaving his room in the middle of the night and waking him up.

Something shifts next to him, and he sees Naruto curled up next to him, asleep. Tensing, he slowly looks at his window, which is wide open. His heart beats faster as he stares at his window. It had been shut when he went to sleep.

He scans the room, looking for danger, and is greeted with a pair of huge yellow eyes.’

His heart leaps into his throat and he puts his fist to his mouth to keep from screaming. He reaches over with his other hand and slips on his glasses and finds himself face to face with a familiar looking red fox.

“ _ Kurama? _ ” He whispers in disbelief, staring at the fox who is happily looking up at him. “What are you doing here? You’re not allowed in here. Forrest animals aren’t allowed to enter human homes and for the most part the humans stay out of the woods. That’s part of the deal, or the part that I figured out by myself.” He mutters to himself, wondering if he was wrong.

Kurama disrupts his musings by bumping his muzzle against Iruka’s nose, sniffing at him. He then bounces onto the bed and licks Naruto’s exposed cheek before Iruka can do anything about it.

“Bro! You can’t just lick people like that!” Iruka hisses, waving his arms around. “Also get off my bad you’re probably so dirty.”

The fox sits on Naruto’s belly and stares at Iruka, as if trying to figure out just who the fuck he was talking to. He then lets out a noise that sounds suspiciously like a laugh and dissolves into thin air, orange and yellow sparkles flitting around Iruka before slowly fading into nothing right before his eyes.

Iruka blinks twice before deciding that  _ that,  _ along with the stuff he learned from Genma and Obito (which he thinks he took _pretty _well if you ask him), were things that he would worry about tomorrow. And falls back asleep, letting the image of orange and gold sparkles lull him back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> ok so idk what im doing w my life but like. comment or whatever [if you want to !!!!!!]


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